Ragtime

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1. PROLOGUE: RAGTIME

(In the darkness, a door swings open. THE LITTLE BOY is silhouetted in the shaft of light from the open door. He walks down the shaft of light to a stereopticon viewer on the floor, picks it up and brings it to his eyes. Two scrims, each with an image of a large Victorian house, its inhabitants and neighbours, merge and leap into three-dimension, as the picture comes alive: the genteel, white, upper-middle-class world of New Rochelle.)

In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York, and it seemed for some years thereafter that all the family's days would be warm and fair.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE

The skies were blue and hazy

Rarely a storm. Barely a chill.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE

The afternoons were lazy, Everyone warm. Everything still.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE

And there was distant music

Simple and somehow sublime

The people called it Ragtime!

Father was well-off. Very well-off. His considerable income was derived from the manufacture of fireworks and bunting and other accoutrements of patriotism. Father was also something of an amateur explorer.

The house on the hill in New Rochelle was Mother's domain. She took pleasure in making it comfortable for the men of her family, and often told herself how fortunate she was to be so potected and provided for by her husband.

Mother's Younger Brother worked at Father's fireworks factory. He was a genius at explosives. But he was also a young man in search of something to believe in. His sister wondered when he would find it.

Grandfather had been a professor of Greek and Latin. Now retired and living with his daughter and her famil, he was thoroughly iritated by everything.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE

The days were gently tinted

Lavender pink, lemon and lime.

Ladies with parasols.

Fellows with tennis balls

There were gazebos, and...

(Spoken) There were no Negroes.

(The PEOPLE OF HARLEM enter, dancing to the piano music of COALHOUSE WALKER, JR.)

And everything was Ragtime!

Listen to that Ragtime!

In Harlem, men and women of colour forgot their troubles and danced and reveled to the music of Coalhouse Walker, Jr. This was a music that was theirs and no one else's.

One young woman thought Coalhouse played just for her. Her name was Sarah.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Booker T. Washington was the most famous Negro in the country. He counselled friendship between the races and spoke of the promise of the future. He had no patience with Negroes who lived less than exemplary lives.

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE

Ladies with parasols,

Fellows with tennis balls.

There were no Negroes

And there were no immigrants.

(IMMIGRANTS cross the stage, bound for America. TATEH and THE LITTLE GIRL join them, poorly clothed and undernourished.)

In Latvia, a man dreamed of a new life for his little girl.

It would be a long journey, a terrible one.

He would not lose her, as he had her mother.

His name was Tateh. He never spoke of his wife. The little girl was all he had now. Together, they would escape.

(HARRY HOUDINI appears above the crowd, performing one of his death=defying feats, suspended upside down in a strait jacket.)

Houdini! Look, it's Houdini!

(HOUDINI spins in the air. He throws the strait jacket to the crowd below. HOUDINI'S MOTHER frees him.)

Harry Houdini was one immigrant who made an art of escape. He was a headliner in the top vaudeville circuits.

(HOUDINI'S MOTHER points with pride)

Ich bin die Mutter des grossen Houdinis!

He made his mother proud. But for all his achievements, he kknew he was only an illusionist. He wanted to believe there was more...

(He notices THE LITTLE BOY.)

(The moment is broken as HOUDINI is enveloped by his crowd of admirers.)

PEOPLE OF NEW ROCHELLE

And there was distant music

Changing the tune, changing the time.

Certain men make a country great.

At the very apex of the American pyramid --

--that's the very tip-top!--

--like Pharaohs reincarnate, stood J.P. Morgan.

All men are born equal.

But the cream rises to the top.

Let me at those sons of bitches! These men are the demons who are sucking your very souls dry! I hate them!

Someone should arrest that woman!

The radical anarchist Emma Goldman fought against the ravages of American capitalism as she watched her fellow immigrants' hopes turn to despair on the Lower East Side.

But America was watching another drama.

Evelyn Nesbit was the most beautiful woman in America. If she wore her hair in curls, every woman wore her hair in curls.

Her lover was the emminent architect, Stanford White, designer of the Pennsylvania Station on 33rd Street.

Her husband, the eccentric millionaire, Harry K. Thaw, was a violent man.

After her husband shot her lover, Evelyn became the biggest attraction in vaudeville since Tom Thumb.

(THAW takes aim at WHITE with a small revolver.)

And though the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906...

And there ninety four years to go!

And there was music playing,

Catching a nation in its prime

Beggar and millionaire

Everyone, everywhere!

Moving to the Ragtime!

(The dance swirls around our three principals--MOTHER, TATEH and COALHOUSE--increasing in intensity. BLACKS, WHITES and IMMIGRANTS find themselves in moments of contact or confrontation; there is the potential for violence.)

And there was distant music

Skipping a beat, singing a dream

A strage, insistent music

Putting out heat, picking up steam

The sound of distant thunder

Suddenly starting to climb

It was the music of something beginning

An era exploding, a century spinning

In riches and rags, and in rhythm and rhyme

The people called it Ragtime...

(On the dock in New York Harbour, MOTHER waves farewell to FATHER as he boards the S.S. Roosevelt, bound for the North Pole.)

2. GOODBYE MY LOVE

And, I suppose, bless America too

You have places to discover

You need to know I'll be there at the window

While you go your way

But, what of the people

Who stay where they're put,

Planted like flowers with roots underfoot

I know some of those people

Have hearts that would rather go journeying

Whose boundaries chafe

Who marry so bravely and end up so safe

Tell me how to be someone

Whose heart can explore while still staying here

Let this be the year

(At sea, FATHER and ADMIRAL PEARY stand on the bridge of their ship.)

It's an honour to go on expedition with you, Admiral Peary.

It's men like you who've made this country great.

It's men like you who will keep it great.

(MATTHEW HENSON appears.)

All sails set, Admiral.

Thank you, Mr. Henson. This is my First Officer, Mr. Matthew Henson.

FATHER (visibly startled that Henson is black)

What's that? In the distance? Such a ghostly glow.

They're called rag ships. Immigrants from every cesspool in western and eastern Europe. Most of them become very patriotic Americans. They're your future customers.

My people were also brought here on ships.

(PEARY and HENSON go. FATHER stares across the dark waters to the rag ship and TATEH and THE LITTLE GIRL.)

You're a brave man, whoever you are. Coming so far, expecting so much.

A salute to the man on the deck of that ship!

A salute to the immigrant stranger

Heaven knows why you'd make such a terrible trip

May your own god protect you from danger

Is if freedom or love that you pray for

In your gutteral accent?

A salute to a fellow who hasn't a chance

If people ask, how old are you?

Where your mother is?

This is my father. He speaks for both of us.

Is that other ship going back home?

No, no! America is our home now. America is our shtetl.

TATEH & THE LITTLE GIRL

(A flare goes off, illuminating FATHER and TATEH.)

Look, someone is waving. Where is he going?

He's a fool on a fool's journey.

To depart on a ship from a country like this

Why on earth would you want to be leaving?

Was it something you lost that you suddenly missed?

Are you angry, or possibly grieving?

Do you see in my face

What you've lost, sir?

Are you moved by the death ship we sail upon?

Well, perhaps you're a man who's in search of his heart

America. Two men meeting

MOTHER And what of the people Whose boundaries chafe Who marry so bravely And end up so safe I will be journeying Here, my love As you go Journeying On the sea

FATHER I salute you, My friend As you go Journeying On the sea

TATEH May you find What you need As you go Journeying On the sea

We're two ships passing

Through the darkness

4. THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY

(YOUNGER BROTHER arrives at a Manhattan vaudeville theatre to see EVELYN NESBIT perform her popular musical re-enactment of her lover's murder. THE JUDGE, JURY, SOB SISTERS and CHORINES run onstage in chaos. MOTHER'S YOUNGER BROTHER runs to his seat in the second balcony, a spectator at the "Trial of the Century".)

And now, testifying for the defense, Miss Evelyn Nesbit.

(EVELYN NESBIT makes her "entrance" descending from above on a swing.)

I was once the lady friend of Stanford White.

He's the famous architect!

He put me on a velvet swing

And made me wear...well...hardly anything!

Ruined at the age of fifteen,

Then I went and married Mr. Harry Thaw...

EVELYN & CHORUS GIRLS

Eccentric millionaire

Harry's a jealous man.

That was the end of Stan.

Your Honour, be fair!

My Harry went crazy, I swear!

Now it's the Crime of the Century

Crime of the Century

Giving the world a thrill!

And Stanny's in heaven

And Evelyn is in vaudeville

The Crime of the Century

Crime of the Century!

All for a youthful fling

And now I'm the girl on the swing!

Mother's Younger Brother was in love with Evelyn Nesbit. From his regular seat in the front row of the second balcony, he would lean far over the railing, hoping his goddess would notice him. One night he almost fell. Evelyn caught sight of him and smiled. Life was suddenly wonderful and full of delicious possibilities.

Harry must not be hung!

Let's have that verdict sung!

That Harry's not guilty...

My Harry's not guilty!

'Cause Harry is out of his mind.

And it's the Crime of the Century

Crime of the Century

Making the world go "whee"!

And Stanny's in heaven

And Evelyn gets publicity!

The Crime of the Century

Crime of the Century

Not such an awful thing --

But my mother's thrilled

'Cause now I'm the girl on the...

Now she's the girl on the...

(After the show, YOUNGER BROTHER tells EVELYN that he is in love with her, but she humiliates him in front of the press. We hear a reprise of "Crime of the Century", but now MOTHER sings it as she enters her garden to work. YOUNGER BROTHER runs off, upset. MOTHER begins to dig in the earth, chatting with THE LITTLE BOY. All at once, she stops.)

5. WHAT KIND OF WOMAN

Get Kathleen, I tell you! Call the doctor!

Is it alive? Oh, please, God, let it be.

It's alive. It's a Negro child. A newborn baby boy.

What kind of woman would do such a thing?

Why in God's name is my husband not here?

Why did I say he was free to go?

Where are your instructions, my dear?

Well, your little lists

Aren't very helpful, I fear!

Each day, the maids trudge up the hill

The hired help arrives

I never stopped to think