Recent Theater in New York
Over Thanksgiving, I spent a few days in NYC, enjoying two films and four plays. More on the films in a later review, but here is an overview of the plays I saw, going from least to most compelling. Ragtime is a well known musical, especially among musical theater fans. It is based on the excellent 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow, chronicling the lives of several characters from the early 1900s, both imagined and real (e.g. Harry Houdini, JP Morgan, the anarchist Emma Goldman). The creative thing about the novel is the way it seamlessly interweaves the famous characters with the invented ones. The book centers around a famed white socialite who bears a child with a black jazz entertainer, Coalhouse Walker, leading to numerous societal, sometimes violent consequences in a racist society. I really enjoyed the book when I read it years ago, as it had a creative mix of sex, history, drama, and intrigue. The acclaimed novel gave rise to a so-so movie in 1981, then a musical in 1996. ...