Ragtime at Landor Theatre

Ragtime at Landor Theatre

08 September, 2011
by: EmmaB

Emma Berge finds you can downsize a musical with downsizing the ideas, performances or the emotion. 

With closing notices being posted by many West End musicals, it’s interesting to note the spate of downsized musicals being produced for fringe theatres. In particular, Company and Parade at Southwark Playhouse and Landor Theatre with The Hired Man and now the multi-award winning musical based on EL Doctorow’s novel, Ragtime.

Ragtime follows three people from different walks of life whose lives coincide in early 1900s America: Mother, an obedient housewife who makes the decision to take in an abandoned black baby and its mother when her husband is away exploring the North Pole; Coalhouse Walker Jr, a proud black man who dreams big dreams for his son; and Tateh, a Latvian immigrant who finds that the land of opportunity isn’t all it’s promised to be. Woven through are characters from history: Henry Ford, Booker T Washington, Harry Houdini and Emma Goldman, to name a few.

It was a large scale production on Broadway and in the West End, but the Landor’s downscaling is innovative and successful. Silhouettes, such as those Tateh creates, are used as a backdrop, and Evelyn Nesbit’s swing is hidden behind a panel. The orchestrations are for a band of five, but Stephen Flaherty’s music still sounds grand and rousing – though sometimes the sound balance is a bit off.

But this is helped along immensely by the cast. The harmonies sound fantastic when belted out at close quarters by a cast of twenty-one. There are also some wonderful stand out performances – Kurt Kansley as Coalhouse is rich voiced and compelling, John Barr is perfectly cast as Tateh, and Rosalind James as Sarah has the audience poised for the chance to applaud her show-stopping rendition of ‘Your Daddy’s Son’.

There are some drawbacks to the Landor; the sight-lines aren’t brilliant at the side, and Robert McWhir’s direction is sometimes too stationary, leaving characters blocking the view for minutes at a time if you’re not in an optimum seat. Similarly, some of the staging is a bit stilted and unimaginative, especially since the audience are so close to the small, sometimes crammed stage.

Despite this, the material makes for a rousing production and the intimacy of the setting makes the rawness of the show even more apparent. Ragtime has strong themes of racism and class, but it’s the individual stories that really drive the show and make it work. The production may be downsized, but the big ideas, the big performances and the big emotions aren’t.


Ragtime The Musical runs at Landor Theatre until 8th October. 


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EmmaB