Attending the Berkeley Playhouse for a second time provided an interesting perspective on the most recent production of Ragtime, based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow, telling a story about how 3 families managed to survive in America during the turn of the 19th century. It would later be adapted into a musical with many of the compositions coming from the composer, Terrence McNally and librettist, Lynn Ahrens. This play is one of the most genre-diverse pieces of music I have ever seen, with bits from contemporary, modern music and old-timey jazz and of course, ragtime, which all culminate into one giant, story-rich play amd a unique time period of music which is rarely covered. The music and the compositions perfectly work in tandem with one another to create one timeless musical show.
The genre of ragtime would make you think that the
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Ragtime, as a genre, is a very consistently syncopated genre with not much variation, but for the purposes of musical theatre, the rules of ragtime had to be bent a little. Some portions would go into a more modern-y, musical theatre genre with variations in rhythm jumping from fast to slow in the blink of an eye in typical musical theatre fashion. The mixed-meters provided a sense of progression within the songs and were a good addition to spice things up a bit in the monotony of ragtime.
The melodies in ragtime were mostly under a similar theme throughout the piece. There was a motif the melodies would always follow, which was based on the first song played called “Ragtime” as well. The melody was always distinct with neighbouring notes being consistent throughout the compositions with the “Ragtime” motif. A majority of the songs would always go up and down scales, jumping from note to note in an angular fashion as it would hit a high note and quickly tumble down onto a deeper, bassier note within a span of