I saw Ragtime, the musical!

I recently watched the musical, Ragtime, at a regional venue. It's about a time in the early twentieth century when there was a lot of tension between the Haves and Have-nots. It was a decent musical, with some great chorus parts and lots of jazzy music (i.e., ragtime) and a very large ensemble. The set was very minimalistic, staged mostly with a projector, scrims and drops. There was even a cool working and self propelled Model T.

What I noticed most of all is how stiff all the Haves (rich white people) were when they danced. (Since the choreography was superb, this may have been intentional.) The way that they danced seemed over-civilized and stylized to the point of being boring. Then, there was a scene when they introduced the major black (and somewhat wealthy) protagonist, named Coalhouse Porter, in this great jazz number that showed an entirely different style of dancing. Every move the dancers made was free, flowing, energetic and extremely expressive of happy emotions. You could really see how happy to be alive they seemed by the moves they made. Sometimes, I do wonder if they were born with the ability to dance, even though I know better.

Such a vast contrast between the two (out of three) major groups represented in the musical. To see the realistic comprimises that people made to protect "us" from "them" was disheartening. I think the most poingant part of the musical was when Brother (one of the Haves, they don't get names for some reason), spurred by these compromises he has seen around him, goes to the poor side of town to find Coalhouse. In that scene, Coalhouse asks Brother what he wants with Coalhouse, and they launch into the song Justice/He Meant to Say, initially sung by the character Emma Goldman and then joined in a duet with Brother. A real tear jerker. I almost shed a tear. Yet, everything that had been sung in that song had been left unspoken. He goes on to say at the end of the scene, "I know how to blow things up."

It got me to thinking. How often have I left things unsaid to those I cared about? I recall times when I held back tears of frustration by not saying what I trully felt to those who had hurt me. There were times when I felt so strongly about something, yet I restrained myself from saying that I cared. And more prosaicly, there were a number of times I kept quiet when I really wanted to shout out, "I think I am in love with you!"

Perhaps you ask why I consider it prosaic? I think that more has been said, sung, written, expressed, painted, and thought of love that to attempt to romanticize it further is something akin to trying to painting a white painted wall white again. It's been done before and only those who painted it know that it happened or mattered at all.

Even though the previous paragraph has some meaning in this post, I am digressing much further than I had intended. I was talking about regret and how I recalled the times I've regretted not saying a thing. Would I be willing to go back to that time when I chose a different path by not saying anything? I don't know. What if the path I have taken has made a difference? Would I have become the person I am, tested by the travails of another's life?

At moments like this when I contemplate things I have left unspoken, I wonder at how different my life might have been.