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| June 2010 |
| Billie Silvey |
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| Ragtime |
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| “Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play Ragtime fast ." --Scott Joplin Though I had studied the Gilded Age in high school American history classes, my real interest in it was stimulated by Ragtime. First there was the music, popularized by composer Scott Joplin. It became the sound track of the period with its heavy, syncopated rhythm (think the theme of The Sting). Then there was the novel by one of my favorite authors, E. L. Doctorow. Published in 1975 by Random House, it tells the story of three interlocking families—a well-to-do white family that lives in a big house on the hill, a Jewish immigrant family struggling to survive in a NewYork tenement, and a middle-class African American family struggling against unreasoning hatred to maintain their dignity. All are sharply drawn as individuals in their own social context, as well as in their interrelationship, as they bring to life a neglected period of history. The work of historical fiction is set primarily in the New York City area from 1902 to 1917 It features historical characters, including Evelyn Nesbit, Emma Goldman, Henry Houdini, Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan and Booker T. Washington, in minor roles. The novel was very well received by literary critics. Nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the Arts and Letters Award. In 1981, the story was made into a movie. Directed by Milos Forman, it starred Mandy Patinkin, Mary Steenburgen, Howard E. Rollins, Jr., and Debbie Allen, with Norman Mailer and James Cagney in minor roles. In 1996, it became a musical. The musical opened on Broadway in 1998, on the West End in 2003, and was revived on Broadway in 2009. It won Tonys for Best Book and Score. |