It might make for a worse image for our traditional Instagram pre-show pic, but I do love it when you walk into a theater and the curtain is closed.  There is something about the element of mystery that heightens your senses as the music starts and the curtain is drawn, bringing you more fully into this world that only exists in that space between the front row and the backdrop, and in the mind of the actors and the audience.  And in the case of “Ragtime the Musical” at Smithfield Little Theatre, the world that is revealed involves a compelling mix of historical figures of the early 1900s, from Harry Houdini to Booker T. Washington, and fictionalized versions of “everyday people”, whose interweaved stories are set to a score that just sounds like America (Scott Joplin-inspired music gets those patriotic feelings flowing for me).

We first become acquainted with a rich white family living in New Rochelle (a suburb of New York City, having a big year after its many callouts in LTVB’s “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”), who are conspicuously unnamed other than the youngster, Edgar.  The emotional center of this family is Mother, who is played by Marilyn B. Bailey.  Bailey is a wonderful actress and beautiful singer, lending her clear and expressive voice to the character who perhaps develops the most.  And she blends magnificently with her on-stage son Edgar, played by Emmett Brown, who adorably tells secrets (…and maybe the future?) throughout the evening. 

The second main plotline involves Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia, who is trying to support his daughter by selling silhouette-style portraits of people on the street (think those black silhouettes you can get made at the theme park of your choice).  Tateh, brought to life by the talented Mike Lopez, has a roller-coaster of a story, and Lopez is up for the inspiring crests and stomach-churning drops, bringing the audience right along with him on this emotional ride.  His on-stage daughter is played by Annie Kate Hickerson, and Hickerson and Lopez’s cute quartet with Bailey and Brown in “Nothing Like the City” was one of our favorite moments of the night.  Lopez does a wonderful job of showing the conflicted feelings of fighting for fair pay versus not putting himself at risk for the sake of his daughter when he interacts with labor activist Emma Goldman (a fantastic performance by Lynn Bright, shouting to the crowd and singing to the rooftops).

And we cannot forget about the third plotline, led by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a ragtime-playing black man from Harlem, and his lover, Sarah.  Sarah’s emotional and heart-breaking journey is portrayed by KaJohnna Johnson, a really difficult role to live within night-in and night-out, and Johnson nails it.  And Coalhouse’s infectious spirit is totally captured by Don-Michael Smith’s charisma.  A challenge for when you see this show – try not to smile between the Smith-fronted “Getting’ Ready Rag” and when he steps into his Model T and puts on his driving goggles.  You won’t be able to do it, it is too fun a sequence!

To get us between all this action, Smithfield Little Theatre has brought out all the stops.  They’ve got a huge ensemble filling out the stage (I’m going to need a tour of the backstage area to try to figure out how they fit all those cast members – along with something like a 20-member orchestra, and multiple large set pieces and props – back there, because it just seems an impossible, Mary Poppins-esque task from director Charity Robinson and stage manager Deb Kelley).  They’ve got a really impressive set (put together by Robert Cox, Matt Baranak, Jeff Eelman, Mike Hildreth, Steve Kellberg, and Stephanie Kensicki), which has enough room for all 35+ cast members to be on-stage together and not feel crowded, while also being easily modified into various different configurations (how many sets can be changed to be both the stands of a baseball game, the deck of a boat, and a moving train?).  The props (brought to us by Judy Post) were truly something to behold, from a beautiful stand-up piano, to a director’s chair and old-timey camera, to a full-size Model T car rolling on stage.  My personal favorite might have been the fancy swing that came from the ceiling for Elaine Brown’s Evelyn Nesbit to rest on while she delivers her vaudeville number “The Crime of the Century” (a highlight of the celebrity cameos thrown into this show). 

And Jenn Melm’s costuming was at another level.  They are not only period-appropriate and plentiful, but they also help tell the story and show the development of the characters.  As the characters become more complex, their costumes become more colorful, and little details like Mother’s hair becoming more relaxed as the show goes on really helps with visualizing the change in her character.  There are vaudeville dresses for Brown’s Nesbit, fancy suits for Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan, and costume changes for the entire ensemble.  Keep an eye out for some sweet black and white shoes that Smith’s Coalhouse wears – those are the epitome of cool.

I’ve tried to be careful about giving away plotlines beyond the basics, as this show is full of twists and turns that I really didn’t see coming.  But suffice it to say, the show doesn’t shy away from the struggles and problems that America and its people faced in the early 20^th century, from class struggles to unwelcome immigrants to outright racism.  Hmm – replace “20^th” in that last sentence to “21^st”, and you might just see why this story continues to get play 50 years after the source-material novel was published.  Like a player piano, America seems to keep playing the same tune time and again.  A tune of hope, a tune of promises (both broken and kept), and a tune that is clearly imperfect.  We have a duty to keep the hope that we can break the cycle and make things better – and that hope for a better future, personified in the characters of “Ragtime”, is what continues to inspire us today.