Terrence McNally's "Ragtime' in Norristown

In the 1960s E. L. Doctorow, his wife and their children moved to a home in New Rochelle, New York. Doctorow sat at his desk and imagined what life was like in 1906, when the house was built. In those days there were no people like Doctorow, whose family came from Russia. To quote the lyrics from this show, in this oasis "there were no immigrants, and there were no Negroes."

These musings led to Doctorow's 1975 novel, Ragtime, which became a movie in 1981 and a Broadway musical in 1997. The story portrays how three families— one black, one Jewish immigrant and one establishment white— intersect and interact with each other. Into this fictitious mix Doctorow added historical figures like the anarchist Emma Goldman, the assembly-line manufacturer Henry Ford, the financier J. Pierpont Morgan and the immigrant escape artist Harry Houdini.

Ragtime's great appeal lies in the interactions among Doctorow's real and fictional characters, as well as the way their actions and counter-actions propel the plot.

Music of something beginning

The story encapsulates a cultural revolution that was beginning to percolate from below. As Lynn Ahrens's lyrics say:

"The skies were blue and hazy...
And there was distant music,/ Simple and somehow divine,/
Giving the nation/ A new syncopation /
People called it Ragtime!
It was the music / Of something beginning. /
An era exploding, / A century spinning."

You might assume that such a vast story is beyond the competence of a small company in Norristown. In fact, the Centre Theatre assembled a huge cast (paying lower-than-downtown salaries) and gave its actors extensive rehearsal time with the director Rory Zummo.

The small size of the theater's fourth-floor studio produced intimate contact with the audience. The staging wasn't elaborate, but then neither was the original Broadway production, which used projections and a small model of a home rather than heavy sets.

(The Broadway version did, however, bring a Model T Ford on stage. This Norristown production used a skeletal auto, as well as a skeletal piano, so as not to block the performers.)

Racial justice

Gary Giles was a powerful force as Coalhouse Walker, the piano-playing black man who demands retribution after bigots destroy his car, which symbolized his dream of an America without boundaries. Giles is a touching actor, and he sang his big ballads with sonority and ringing high notes. Jillian Pirtle was sweet as Sarah, the mother of his child, and she sang soulfully.

Shaun Yates handled the difficult job of playing Father, adamantly resistant to change, and he brought it off with dignity. Krissy Johnson was sympathetic as his wife, who gradually liberates herself from her privileged but cloistered life. Chris Monaco was appealing as her younger brother, who's attracted to Emma Goldman's radical politics and becomes a bomb maker. Connor McAndrews was warm and sensitive as Tateh, the immigrant who re-invents himself as a film producer.

In tandem with the large ensemble cast, these actors created several touching emotional moments: Sarah's funeral, Mother's realization that she can never go back to the life she once knew, and the finale, when Coalhouse surrenders, only to be gunned down by the police.

The music by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens embraced ragtime, love songs, ballads, blues and even comic numbers about baseball and a cover girl on a swing. Music director Nancy Chronister kept the mood expressive with a necessarily small orchestra.♦


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