![]() An early, brief meeting between Tateh and Mother and their children is a graceful amplification of a smaller episode in the book, and its glancing, slight song (“Nothing Like the City”) is one of the show’s lovelier in its subtlety. Musical motifs are used intelligently for dramatic effect: the words of the title tune - “An era exploding, a century spinning” - take on a dark hue when Coalhouse turns them into an anthem for his violent struggle for retribution. Morgan strides along a factory gangplank that descends as if to crush the immigrants toiling in the factory below him Houdini, an immigrant himself, appears to magically liberate them, and we see in a flash the psychological symbolism behind his immense fame: If he could escape from seemingly impossible snares, so could anyone wriggle free from the traps of poverty or misfortune. There are some marvelously felicitous touches: In the number “Success,” J.P. The density of Doctorow’s novel - there’s virtually no dialogue - would seem almost impossible to reconcile with the economy required by drama (Milos Forman concentrated on just one strand for his 1981 movie), but Frank Galati’s staging deftly blends both: The show is economically dense, with Lynn Ahrens’ lyrics driving the various strands of the show with as much dexterity as Terrence McNally’s spare, witty book. Younger Brother (Scott Carollo) has his own transformations to make: from dissatisfied youth to besotted admirer of Evelyn Nesbit, the notorious beauty who inspired “the crime of the century” (her millionaire husband’s murder of her former lover Stanford White) to dedicated follower of Coalhouse in his quest for justice at any price. Meanwhile, Tateh (John Rubinstein) struggles to find the America he’d promised to his daughter, falling in with Goldman’s (Judy Kaye) labor movement agitators before transforming himself into filmmaking pioneer Baron Ashkenazy. They trash his car, and Coalhouse’s dogged quest for retribution leads inadvertently to his wife’s death. Mother takes into her home both the baby and her distraught, remorseful mother Sarah (LaChanze), and watches with grudging affection as the baby’s father, Coalhouse (Brian Stokes Mitchell), comes doggedly courting, trying to win back Sarah’s affection.Ĭoalhouse’s immense dignity and pride are symbolized in his spanking new Model T - the dream of Henry Ford, forged, in one of the many painful ironies that cycle through the show, at the dehumanizing expense of the immigrant workers lashed to his own great innovation, the assembly line.īut Coalhouse’s devotions to Sarah bring him into foreign territory for a man from Harlem, and into conflict with a gang of racist firemen incensed at the sight of a black man in a car that symbolizes to them, too, American prosperity. When Mother (Marcia Mitzman Gaven), digging in her flower bed, discovers a newborn black baby buried in the earth, the distinct worlds delineated in that song irrevocably implode. Washington, Emma Goldman - make their own appearances.Īnd that’s just the opening number. As the three groups move together and apart, Graciele Daniele’s breathtakingly graceful choreography (a highlight of the show throughout) foreshadows the intertwining destinies of these fictional principals, as historical figures who will play upon their lives - Harry Houdini, J.P. The loveliness of the opening tableau - a white-clad flock of white folks posing just so for a photograph - takes on a new note, half elegy, half irony, as they begin to sing about the closing of their era of innocence: “There were no Negroes … and there were no immigrants.”Īfter the white principals are introduced - the upper-middle-class Mother and Father, their young son and Mother’s Younger Brother - the stage fills with a free-spirited chorus of blacks led by the pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr., and a ragtag band of fresh-off-the-boat immigrants, including the Latvian Tateh and his young daughter. The dazzling title number is the show opener, a ragtime riff whose chorus ends on a note of urgency that sets the tone for the show’s strong mixture of uplift and plain-spoken truth-telling. Doctorow found the perfect metaphor for his 1975 novel, in which he illustrated how fortune and fate clash haphazardly with humanity’s dreams and ambitions, and history - for good or ill - is forged from the chaotic conflict. In ragtime music, with its jangled syncopation, its delicate melodies borne aloft on notes seemingly thrown together by chance, E.L.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |