Ragtime left me moved but conflicted
Before I start, I'll admit I may not have had the full context surrounding this show when it first came out. I'm just here to share my experience and hear what others think.
I saw Ragtime recently, and I've been thinking about it since. The cast was incredible, no complaints there. But I felt like the writing was a bit superficial at times and didn't cut as deep as it clearly wanted to.
The thing that bothered me most was Sarah. She's at the center of one of the show's most devastating storylines, but she feels more like a symbol than a fully realized person. Given everything that's happened in the decades since this show premiered, I felt like her story deserved more weight and more interiority.
The storytelling still got to me, and there were moments that hit hard. But the ending left me unsettled in a way I'm still working through. It was honest, maybe brutally so, but I'm not sure honest and satisfying are the same thing here.
Is the flatness intentional? A reflection of how these communities were seen and treated at the time? I'd love to hear from people who know this show better than I do.