‘Ragtime,’ Whose Time?

When actor John Rubinstein realized that much of the new musical “Ragtime” is set in 1906, his role as an immigrant father took on added resonance--it was in 1906 that his own father, legendary Polish-born pianist Arthur Rubinstein, first visited America.

“Ragtime,” which has its U.S. premiere Sunday at the Shubert Theatre, is based on E.L. Doctorow’s classic novel about America at the turn of the century. Immigrants were pouring in from abroad, black populations were moving north and even established Americans were struggling to understand the social changes all around them.

Doctorow’s story interweaves three communities: Rubinstein plays Tateh, the most prominent of the show’s immigrants. Brian Stokes Mitchell, who performed as Jelly Roll Morton in “Jelly’s Last Jam,” plays Harlem’s Coalhouse Walker Jr., a successful ragtime pianist. Marcia Mitzman Gaven, who portrayed another mother, Mrs. Walker, in “The Who’s Tommy,” now plays Mother, an upper-class wife in suburban New Rochelle.

Calendar Weekend met with three of “Ragtime’s” stars to talk about their characters and the country they inhabit.

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Question: “Ragtime” dramatizes America as the world’s great “melting pot.” How do you, and the characters you play, view that America?

Rubinstein: At the turn of the century, America was seen by Europeans to be the great haven of freedom and opportunity. In Tateh’s particular case, he was running away from the pogroms, but he was also an artist who was denied his freedom to create and express himself. He came here to give a better life to his little girl.

Both my parents were from Poland. They’d been living in France in 1939, and came to escape Hitler, just before the occupation. My brother, who is considerably older than I and who was born in Poland, very specifically remembers the feeling of coming to America and feeling safe as he stepped off the boat.

Mitchell: There was an optimism people had at the start of the century--a chicken in every pot, everybody can have a car, that promise of the American dream. Coalhouse’s custom-made Model T in the show symbolizes hope.

Mitzman Gaven: For Mother and the others in New Rochelle, it was more a matter of preserving what they already had. Even so--and despite the fact that they had prosperity and wealth--every generation hopes and strives for more for its children.

Q: Doctorow has said that when you’re writing about the past, you’re writing about the present: all the problems we have now, they had then. How do each of your characters--Mother, Tateh and Coalhouse--reflect that philosophy?

Mitzman Gaven: The difference between my playing Mother at the turn of the century and if I were playing her now is that what we consider God-given rights as women today were new, surprising discoveries to her. But the issues and challenges she faces are the same facing women today--trying to find your identity as a wife, mother and independent person who has choices and ideas.

The man Mother placed so much of her hopes and dreams in had reached his limits. He wasn’t going to grow further, and she was. And I think that’s relevant with any relationship today.

Rubinstein: People needing a new home are understandably desperate to get into a place like America. They fight the resistance to immigration they inevitably find. But one of the ugly things about human nature is that once “in,” they turn around and try to prevent other people from doing just what they did. Here in California, where we are all immigrants of one kind or another, there isn’t an election that doesn’t involve some prickly question about further immigration.

Mitchell: People don’t change very much. The trappings around them change--the society, the politicians, the governments--but people are essentially the same. We are a tribal species that seems fiercely loyal to our own, whether our own is our country or our particular race or religion or belief.

The advantage that Tateh has is the color of his skin. Even though he is an immigrant, and even though when he opens his mouth people will know he’s not from New Rochelle, still there isn’t a prejudgment that happens as soon as he walks into the room. That’s the frustration of Coalhouse and still the frustration of many African Americans and people of color. Today our tribal lines are drawn financially or by the neighborhood you live in. But they are still also drawn by the color of your skin and the way you speak.

Q: By the end of the show, of course, much has changed for everyone. When Mother sings the line, “We can never go back to before,” do you see that as an anthem for all the characters?

Mitchell: “Ragtime” is about the history of our country and our psyche, but it’s an unusual history. It’s told from the early part of the century looking forward, and it allows us now at the end of the century to look back and see what have we wrought.

Mitzman Gaven: I think each character in “Ragtime” has grown tremendously throughout the arc of the play, and they probably never will go back to before. But history does repeat itself, and those same lessons are relearned by each new generation.

Rubinstein: It is certainly true that the characters’ lives and conditions have changed at the end of the story. But as far as an anthem goes, Tateh is not looking negatively backward. He is looking happily and optimistically forward, saying, “Look at the miracles that are waiting for us tomorrow.”

BE THERE

“Ragtime” opens Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at the Shubert Theatre, 2020 Avenue of the Stars, Century City. Regular schedule: Tuesdays to Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Dark July 4. Ends Sept. 7. $35-$75. (800) 447-7400.

Barbara Isenberg is the author of “Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical.”