Scott Joplin (c.1867-1917) was an African American Composer and Pianist of Ragtime and Classical Music who wrote three operas and is featured at AfriClassical.com
The San Diego Union-Tribune
World premiere play with music examines tortured life of ragtime composer Scott Joplin
Sept. 27, 2014
The history of music is
littered with tortured artists, and one of the least-explored stories is
that of ragtime innovator Scott Joplin.
The
turn-of-the-century Texarkana composer’s life is creatively examined by
playwright/actor Robert Barry Fleming in his world premiere one-man
show “Scott Joplin’s New Rag,” which opened Friday at 10th Avenue
Theatre downtown. Produced by Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, the
“fierce tragedy in one act” is thoughtful, ambitious and well-designed,
but it felt seriously under-rehearsed on opening night.
Hundreds
of actors tour the globe with solo “trunk shows” where they play a
famous figure in an autobiographical drama. Like other shows, Fleming’s
“New Rag” tell Joplin’s life story, but in an unconventional way that
makes it a more intriguing theatrical experience. Here, the audience
meets Joplin in the last stages of syphilis-related dementia, and the
flashbacks to his adolescent piano lessons, active composing years and
many career setbacks are seen through the distorted and often-unsettling
lens of paranoia, anxiety and senility.
Fleming
plays multiple roles, including Joplin’s parents (his father warned him
not to trust white men, which in many cases proved sound advice), his
childhood piano teacher Julius Weiss, his business partner John Strong
and a chorus of music purists and racists who abhorred the black roots
of his syncopated rhythms. Although Joplin made the music form
mainstream with his million-selling “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899, his
efforts to earn critical respect and advance the form with operas like
“Treemonisha” were failures. In 1917, the 49-year-old Joplin died
penniless in a New York mental hospital.
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