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re: I agree

Posted by: lowwriter 11:22 am EDT 03/13/14
In reply to: I agree - Kaoru 08:46 am EDT 03/13/14

I love Ragtime but the only production that worked for me was the scaled down version at Papermill, directed by a fellow who did it in England. I found the Broadway production bombastic and hurt by that awful barn of the theater on 42nd Street.


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re: I agree

Posted by: allineedisthegirl 04:46 pm EDT 03/13/14
In reply to: re: I agree - lowwriter 11:22 am EDT 03/13/14

I with you there. I was impressed but unmoved by the original production of Ragtime, which I saw several days after it opened, all original cast. Of course it didn't help that I was in the rear of the orchestra and felt like I was watching the show from Hoboken.

Many years later I saw a production at Hofstra Univ. (on Long Island) (Hofstra USA or Grey Wig, I forget which), and I was blown away and reduced to tears.

If I'd only had a better seat first time around!

db


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re: I agree

Posted by: Chazwaza 06:24 pm EDT 03/13/14
In reply to: re: I agree - allineedisthegirl 04:46 pm EDT 03/13/14

Oh man... as someone who sat in the mid to front orchestra both times I saw the original, let me tell you, it really helped. I assume, I've never seen it from the back of a house that big.

I think what I just said in reply to Alan about Sweeney applies in many ways to Ragtime too. It is a big show, written with big music and big emotion and relatively broad character who start out distanced, purposefully, from the audience. And the show gets more intimate, but besides that it's a show about people (it's also a show about history and about Ragtime as a time in and metaphor for that period in America), it is not really an intimate show. And I think the show works best when the physical production embraces and compliments the large scale of the work and story, while also allowing it to become intimate when the writing goes there. And from where I saw in that theater, it did both in the original production. But I can certainly understand having a different experience from much further away. However I will say those songs are built for the back of the house, so I don't know that being half-again as close to the singer would move you that much more.


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