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"Ragtime" at City Center

 The highlight of "Ragtime" is a tiny moment in the song "Gliding."


In this song, a man wants his little daughter to close her eyes and daydream. He orders her literally four times to close her eyes. Four times! I always assumed this was lazy writing, but Brandon Uranowitz (at long last) makes the line work. The fourth time Uranowitz (a gay man) says the line, he puts a startling kind of sassy topspin on the command: "Girl? Close your friggin' eyes." 

Uranowitz is Tateh, an overwhelmed dad. Life hands him many shitty days. The gospel of musical theater writing says that your protagonist should have earth-shaking ambitions, and certainly, Tateh has these ambitions. He is penniless, mourning the loss of his wife, fighting off Lower East Side strangers who want to purchase his little girl for sex. Tateh wants to attain "a normal life," but also he wants to make use of his artistic talent (between the various street brawls that arise, the altercations with child traffickers, etc.)

I think Uranowitz understands that one should not take this material too seriously. So he adds a sense of humor; it's such a welcome change. It's one of very few sources of humor in the (three-hour) event.

When Uranowitz gets the hots for the shrieking white lady who lives next door, he mocks her lightly. The impression Uranowitz offers of his longtime friend, Caissie Levy, is affectionate and slightly (unmistakably) scathing. It's also charming.

When Uranowitz (improbably) earns many truckloads of dollar bills, he is awed by his own magnificence. His self-regard (not fully indicated by the script) is funny and plausible; it's clear that Uranowitz pays close attention to how real people behave, and he has smuggled many, many insights into "Ragtime."

Do other things happen in this show? Oh, yes. Infanticide, police brutality, domestic terrorism, the assassination by Princip, the sinking of the Lusitania, a big labor strike in Massachusetts, a brief appearance by a spooky ghost, a transatlantic passage, a dissolution-of-marriage, a second hasty (Act Two) marriage, a first kiss.

But it's Uranowitz I will remember. Hats off to Joshua Henry--and yet, also, Uranowitz is a main reason to see this show.
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