GRAMOPHONE Review: Ragtime – 2025 Broadway Cast Recording
I don’t think anyone would argue with the assertion that this is one of the great theatre scores of the last half century. That Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens actually auditioned for it – three or fours songs submitted for consideration on cassette tape – only makes the story even more extraordinary. I, of course, still have the principal voices – Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and the late Marin Mazzie – forever resonating in my subconscious (indeed I saw all three on Broadway) and that can be both a blessing and a curse when listening to this all-new revival. That it sounds so freshly minted is a tribute to both the material and the intensity with which it is delivered here.
The miracle of the book (Terrence McNally) and score is their seamless integration, the diversity of musical styles – from piano rags, marching bands, gospel and raucous Klezmer to big aspirational songs with an operatic reach – melding with the pithiness of the spoken word to produce this amazing fresco of social change in America at the turn of the last century. McNally starts with the inspired idea of having the principal characters introduce themselves in the third person and that brilliant opening sequence unfolding over the very ‘proper’ syncopations of a traditional piano rag (dogged left hand, slyly adventurous right) where the non-lyric ‘la, la-la-la-la’ (which the composer Flaherty at first interpreted as Ahrens having not yet having come up with the words) conveys both a nonchalance and an anticipation.
The other great set piece is the act one finale ‘Till We Reach That Day’ where if I’m absolutely honest the wailing gospel riffs are too integrated into what is by design an overwhelming wall of sound.
That sound is underpinned by the genius orchestrator William David Brohn (sadly no longer with us) whose handle on the stylistic range of musics is absolute and reproduced here with a 28-piece band captured in very sharp relief. It has a Kurt Weillian edge and immediacy and some of the inner details, like the all-important banjo part, are in your face in ways that wasn’t the case in the Original Cast Recording of 1997. It’s as exciting as it is different. Earthier, less glossy.
As are the performances. The material is a gift for the most accomplished singing actors with one great song after another driving the narrative and intensifying the drama in ways that can and often do take the breath away. ‘Your Daddy’s Son’ is a soulful aria which Nichelle Lewis (Sarah) makes so personal, connecting it to the aspirational duet ‘Wheels of a Dream’ where Joshua Henry’s Coalhouse Walker and she really hit the heights. Lewis’ sound is very contemporary and that’s something that also struck me about Cassie Levy’s Mother. It’s an observation more than a criticism but it does slightly work against a song like the barnstorming eleven o’clock number ‘Back to Before’ which is nothing if not operatic in both its scale and message.
There’s another eleven o’clock number in the score, of course – ‘Till We Reach That Day’ – which is Colehouse’s apotheosis and my goodness Joshua Henry is mighty in it. A veritable powerhouse. His final note (eternal) could move mountains.
