Pass the painkillers, please
RAGTIME Charing Cross Theatre, WC2
HERE’S an odd, but true, confession: I can’t recall ever feeling so oppressed by a piece of theatre as I was by Ragtime. I mean this in a physical sense, as by the interval my heart was pounding and head was hurting so much that I had to resort to Nurofen. This production of the 1998 multiple Tony Awardnominated musical — whose previous West End outing lasted less than three months — is exhausting and unrelenting and simply way too much in a dizzying number of senses. There are too many songs (32), too many actors (24), it’s too loud and the stage is far too cluttered. At nearly three hours, it’s a punishing evening.
Based on E L Doctorow’s novel, it focuses on three groups in the swirling hotpot of turn-of-the-20thcentury New York: an affluent white family, a black musician and his family and two Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
As if that weren’t enough, there are also pop-up appearances from a range of real-life characters such as Henry Ford and Harry Houdini. The result is a desperate scrabble for stage time, with no storyline being even nearly sufficiently developed and a belting and unsubtle emotional line prevalent throughout.
And those songs (music by
Stephen Flaherty and lyrics from Lynn Ahrens)! There are 20 in the first half alone, which means that the detailing of musical numbers in the programme becomes like an oppressive to-do list to be ticked off. The show simply never stops to catch its breath or allow us a moment’s pause for reflection and director Thom Southerland does nothing to ameliorate this. Gruelling. Until December 10 (08444 930 650, charingcrosstheatre.co.uk)