Imagine Mr. Joplin Selling Songs to Mr. Berlin
Charles IsherwoodJuly 15, 2009: If the figures in wax museums could walk, talk and play the piano, they would closely resemble the leading characters in “The Tin Pan Alley Rag,” a bio-musical about an imaginary encounter between Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin. This stodgy and soporific show, which opened on Tuesday night at the Laura Pels Theater of the Roundabout, transforms the lives and careers of two of America’s great popular composers into two hours of theatrical elevator music.
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