Those locals with nothing to do Saturday night need to hie their rear ends over to LaFollette High to catch their last performance of Ragtime. It is simply stellar, and you’ll hate yourself for missing it.
The show itself, leaving the performance thereof aside, is middling. The subplots have been poorly integrated; I desperately want to know more about what “Baron Ashkenazy” (dig the name!) thinks of Tateh’s first-act travails. Moreover, most of the music handed to the players in those subplots (Tateh and Mother especially) is thankless at best. When it works, though, it does work: Ashton Siewert (Emma Goldman) and Alex Leary (Younger Brother) did nicely with the very clever “He Wanted To Say,” and the men’s chorus had an absolute ball with “What a Game.”
The orchestra was too large, and needed a real pit—not the players’ fault. I heard some excellent brass and reeds in there; the violins—well, they tried hard, and let’s leave it at that.
The reason to go to this production, however—well, there are several, the genuine Model T they wheel out on stage not least among them—the reason to go is Byron Bishop II as Coalhouse Walker Jr. I can’t say enough about this brilliant young man. He’s got a stunning voice that he’s far too smart to mishandle, he puts together beautiful chemistry with Ashley Jordan (Sarah), and rarest of all for someone that young, he knows how to move. I never saw a clichéd motion, an overdone gesture, or the least bit of woodenness from him. Absolutely magnetic; I wore out my throat cheering him, and I surely was not alone.
If you can make it, go! You may see this show again; you’ll never see it with a better Coalhouse.