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ceebeegeeSaw Ragtime last night with Michael. This is a new scaled-down production--you might even call it stripped down. I didn't see the original production on Broadway, only the first national tour--I didn't have a problem with that set but apparently it attracted some criticism for being too much--too big, too bulky, whatever. Bearing that in mind, I think this set goes a little too far in the other direction--it looks like scaffolding up there. As a means of showing off the cast, as a structural piece that helps advance the action, I think it works--I just think it looks ugly and colorless. There's a middle ground, just add some more movable set pieces. They do this well enough in the New Rochelle WASP household, they need to do it more for the other settings as well. And have more of a car up there! Someone on ATC said it very well, "Fred Flintstone wants his car back!" The car is a symbol of Coalhouse's material success, we really should see more than an outline.
The performances are a little uneven but generally pretty good. The two strongest, IMO, are Stephanie Umoh as Sarah and Bobby Steggart as Mother's Younger Brother. The latter is incredibly intense, completely in the moment all the way through and manages somehow to be both scary and touching. He also sounds great. Stephanie Umoh doesn't always sound flawless (I think she's covering a little too much) but she does a pretty good job and she's so incredibly sweet and likeable as Sarah. I suppose you could argue that you kind of HAVE to like Sarah, she's written that way but you can't write charm, the performer has to bring that. Furthermore she's absolutely gorgeous, she looks like a radiant fawn up there.
Father and Mother were good but didn't particularly excite--I thought Mother was a slightly more interesting actor than singer. The kid playing Edgar is terrific, and I want to adopt the Little Girl. Tateh was--again, okay, but I thought he was missing something, he seemed to take himself SO SERIOUSLY, a little humor helps with that role and makes your eventual breakdown in the tenement neighborhood more impactful. Coalhouse acted the role quite well but I don't think he's supporting very well, I wasn't that thrilled with his singing.
Loved Donna Migliaccio (Washington DC actors represent! Everyone knows her down there) as Emma Goldman and am grumpy that one poster on ATC wrote her and the guy who played Booker T. Washington off as caricatures. I thought they both gave believable, fully realized performances. I also liked Harry Houdini and Henry Ford--yeah, they're not huge roles but I still liked them.
And--Evelyn. I always get cranky when I see Evelyns. I've never seen one that seemed to be anything much but a caricature. This one was waaaay too brash, grinning nonstop, with a really unattractive red wig* and just--trying too hard. Brash is not sexy. Cheap is not sexy. Subtle is sexy. Evelyn Nesbit was neither brash nor cheap--yes, she's written as a chorine milking her notoriety but you can make her more interesting and self-aware than that, you can have her winking (figuratively speaking) at the audience, especially on lines like "ruined at the age of 15!" She wrote two autobiographies for God's sake, she wasn't stupid. And frankly she was a hell of a lot more sympathetic than she's portrayed in the show--she really was a victim of her own beauty. Stanford White was nothing more than a proto-Roman Polanski, although he had a much more longstanding relationship with Evelyn and took care of her for a long time.
They also cut the second verse of "Crime of the Century"--well, they didn't exactly cut it but she mouthes the words to underscoring while Edgar or someone else gives us more exposition. O-kay, I can see the wisdom of that change, I just don't like it because I love that song!
*I'm so mortified. I've seen many pictures of Evelyn Nesbit but they're all in black and white--I had no idea she was a redhead. I've been grumbling about the fact that the original EN in 1998 was a blonde, because of all the characters whose appearance you need to get right, it's hers since that's orignally what made her famous! Anyway, she was a redhead.
Such a beautiful score. Man, do I love that score. Just to hear that live...
I sort of know Mark Aldrich, who played Willy Conklin. He's also from DC, and back in the '90s he was friends with a friend of mine, Charles. Charles and Amy (his GF) were sort of trying to set me up with Mark at one point--I think Charles and Mark were both doing A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theater (while Amy and I were doing Fiddler on the Roof at one of the dinner theaters) and we all hung out after their show one night at Sweet Georgia Brown's or one of those Southern restaurants that sprang up in DC after Clinton became President. I doubt he even remembers it :)
It strikes me as odd that Tateh is able to sell his "movie book" for a dollar--a whole dollar, really? A dollar was quite a bit of money back then, it would be at least $20 nowadays, I should think.
The performances are a little uneven but generally pretty good. The two strongest, IMO, are Stephanie Umoh as Sarah and Bobby Steggart as Mother's Younger Brother. The latter is incredibly intense, completely in the moment all the way through and manages somehow to be both scary and touching. He also sounds great. Stephanie Umoh doesn't always sound flawless (I think she's covering a little too much) but she does a pretty good job and she's so incredibly sweet and likeable as Sarah. I suppose you could argue that you kind of HAVE to like Sarah, she's written that way but you can't write charm, the performer has to bring that. Furthermore she's absolutely gorgeous, she looks like a radiant fawn up there.
Father and Mother were good but didn't particularly excite--I thought Mother was a slightly more interesting actor than singer. The kid playing Edgar is terrific, and I want to adopt the Little Girl. Tateh was--again, okay, but I thought he was missing something, he seemed to take himself SO SERIOUSLY, a little humor helps with that role and makes your eventual breakdown in the tenement neighborhood more impactful. Coalhouse acted the role quite well but I don't think he's supporting very well, I wasn't that thrilled with his singing.
Loved Donna Migliaccio (Washington DC actors represent! Everyone knows her down there) as Emma Goldman and am grumpy that one poster on ATC wrote her and the guy who played Booker T. Washington off as caricatures. I thought they both gave believable, fully realized performances. I also liked Harry Houdini and Henry Ford--yeah, they're not huge roles but I still liked them.
And--Evelyn. I always get cranky when I see Evelyns. I've never seen one that seemed to be anything much but a caricature. This one was waaaay too brash, grinning nonstop, with a really unattractive red wig* and just--trying too hard. Brash is not sexy. Cheap is not sexy. Subtle is sexy. Evelyn Nesbit was neither brash nor cheap--yes, she's written as a chorine milking her notoriety but you can make her more interesting and self-aware than that, you can have her winking (figuratively speaking) at the audience, especially on lines like "ruined at the age of 15!" She wrote two autobiographies for God's sake, she wasn't stupid. And frankly she was a hell of a lot more sympathetic than she's portrayed in the show--she really was a victim of her own beauty. Stanford White was nothing more than a proto-Roman Polanski, although he had a much more longstanding relationship with Evelyn and took care of her for a long time.
They also cut the second verse of "Crime of the Century"--well, they didn't exactly cut it but she mouthes the words to underscoring while Edgar or someone else gives us more exposition. O-kay, I can see the wisdom of that change, I just don't like it because I love that song!
*I'm so mortified. I've seen many pictures of Evelyn Nesbit but they're all in black and white--I had no idea she was a redhead. I've been grumbling about the fact that the original EN in 1998 was a blonde, because of all the characters whose appearance you need to get right, it's hers since that's orignally what made her famous! Anyway, she was a redhead.
Such a beautiful score. Man, do I love that score. Just to hear that live...
I sort of know Mark Aldrich, who played Willy Conklin. He's also from DC, and back in the '90s he was friends with a friend of mine, Charles. Charles and Amy (his GF) were sort of trying to set me up with Mark at one point--I think Charles and Mark were both doing A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theater (while Amy and I were doing Fiddler on the Roof at one of the dinner theaters) and we all hung out after their show one night at Sweet Georgia Brown's or one of those Southern restaurants that sprang up in DC after Clinton became President. I doubt he even remembers it :)
It strikes me as odd that Tateh is able to sell his "movie book" for a dollar--a whole dollar, really? A dollar was quite a bit of money back then, it would be at least $20 nowadays, I should think.
