Gil Hates Everything

See also the full review of Ragtime.

In 1996 they put out a concept album of 21 tracks from Ragtime, which is a fairly hefty number, but, as we know from yesterday, only just over half the numbers on the full cast recording.

The album doesn’t stint on the production or singing quality; concept albums, after all, are supposed to electrify you with the desire to see a show which can’t yet been watched, so they have to sell you on the experience.

I confess this isn’t a line-by-line comparison of the songs to see what’s changed between concept and production. There are some songs which are shorter because interpolated dialogue has been removed – “Gliding” in particular is half the size. It’s not possible to tell which songs got added – they might have already existed but not been selected for these highlights – but the order is slightly different.

The most obvious changes are that there’s a song called “The Show Biz” near the end, in which Houdini and Evelyn Nesbit reflect on their showbiz careers, which got cut, and that’s fair enough, as it’s a bit average… and, interestingly, “He Wanted To Say” is nowhere near as good, shooting its load much earlier and then hammering away at the point in eleven o’clock style. A sensible choice to change it.

Listening to the show in this condensed form reminds me (as the memories come flooding back from the halcyon years of, er, yesterday) just how well-chosen are the motifs. The existence of the automobile, and its potential for escape, transformation, and ennoblement… and the father’s realization of his racism and the changing of the world in “New Music”… this is incredibly powerful stuff. It’s irritating that this show came to Vancouver on a big budget when I wasn’t here, as I can’t see it being as effective on a scaled-down budget. For one thing, you need a real car. You couldn’t conjure the right mood with a cardboard cutout or with movie clips; you’d need to see the car itself, to share with the characters their awe and pleasure in the presence of this impossibly new and gleaming physical thing.

One unarguable result of this two-day “Ragtime” immersion is that Ahrens and Flaherty are now on my “I’ll willingly listen to anything they do” list. And this is a real short list: it’s basically William Finn, Jason Robert Brown, and (based on “In The Heights”) Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Anyway, if you happen to go shopping for a “Ragtime” soundtrack, the pros of this version are it’s less of an exhaustingly hefty listen, and it might be cheaper because it’ll only be one CD, and really the only major track you miss out on is “Sarah Brown Eyes”. So if you’re planning on persuading someone that this is a good show, maybe this would be a better choice, but heads should get the double album.

And now, Philip Glass for the rest of the day, and then tomorrow, wrapping up the GHM week, it’s “Reefer Madness”. See you then, avids.