It’s become standard procedure that when the lights go down at a musical, the crowd will applaud and cheer with anticipation. But after the Saturday afternoon audience does just that at Ragtime, expert director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge has her orchestra purposely pretend to do some last-minute tuning up, as if this is a Big Classical Event.

In fact, it is. Ragtime is already a musical theater classic, so when the lights fade fully to black, the audience applauds and cheers for a second time. Then, when the curtain goes up, and the crowd sees the entire 33-member cast on stage – the (in alphabetical order) Jews, “Negroes,” and WASPS – the applause and cheers reach their zenith.

Three cheers for Ragtime, and no one has yet even said a word or sung a note. It’s a real, “Welcome home!” -- almost as if to say, “We’re still sorry that the Tony-voters chose that show with the razzle-dazzle costumes and direction, but with a book full of fart jokes and a double entendre that, if Walt Disney had been alive to hear it, he would have fired everyone on the spot.” (Remember? Scar: “I need to be bucked up.” Timon: “You've already bucked up royally.”) Well, as the Baron says in Ragtime’s second act, “Anyone can get lucky in America.”

Right away, we see that Dodge has added little touches that prove she’s intently thought about every Terrence McNally line and Lynn Ahrens lyric. Father (Ron Bohmer) gives a jaunty gesture when discussing his enthusiasm for amateur exploration. Younger Brother (Bobby Steggert) now has a far more threatening and dangerous air about him. Evelyn Nesbit (Savannah Wise) pauses before telling us where Penn Station is, because the bubblehead simply can’t remember. All this happens before the final chorus of the title song, where we see the blacks and the Jews wildly dancing, while the uptight WASPS are taking only rudimentary and tentative steps.

Derek McLane’s skeletal set resembles the Great Hall at Ellis Island. It’s a spare Ragtime: Even the piano and the Model T are skeletal. And though the vehicle – the symbol of American success -- should be more ornate, having a sketch of a car is better than what the Paper Mill Playhouse offered some years ago: Believe it or not, no car at all.

The lavish sets that the original Ragtime had are not, no matter what anyone says, “trappings.” Grand scenery is to be appreciated. But Ragtime is a strong enough show to withstand decisions made all in the cause of economy. At least we’re getting a larger-than-usual cast and orchestra. That this production is on a smaller stage and in a small theater than the original was at the Ford (Hilton) helps, too.

What’s more, Dodge wisely directs much of the action right at the lip of the stage so we can better see and hear everything. (Wish more directors would.) She makes “Crime of the Century” a razz-ma-tazz vaudeville number, with purposely garish Santo Loquasto costumes, including a very clever one for Harry K. Thaw that morphs into something more interesting.

Here’s another nice Dodge detail: Once father arrives home from his North Pole expedition and complains about an injury he sustained, he limps for the rest of the show. It’s the first chink in an armor that will see many more before long. Father in the first act refuses to shake a black man’s hand; in the second, he does. Even he learns.

The crowd excitedly applauds Coalhouse and Sarah’s “Wheels of a Dream” -- not just because Quentin Earl Darrington and Stephanie Umoh sing it beautifully, but because audience members also revel in their happiness, and want for them what the lovers want for themselves. We see so many love stories in musicals, but never one with as complicated a past as Coalhouse and Sarah’s: He abandons her, she abandons her child, but eventually there’s forgiveness and love is restored. Beautiful.

After we see what they’ve gone through, both of their future personal tragedies make a greater impact. How quickly good fortune and life can be taken away. That’s America, too. And that’s why Dodge inserts an incisive commentary after Sarah’s death: Those cast members watching from above have each been holding a little American flag to welcome the presidential candidate's arrival. Now they let them drop to the floor, as a statement of how they believe less in the American Dream.

As the entr’acte plays, some audience members applaud in rhythm. Smart to start Act Two differently from the original, where there had been a scene between Little Boy and Houdini. Dodge shows us only Coalhouse, a far cry from the filled stage we saw at the top of Act One: he feels all alone now that Sarah is dead. (Why, though, must he say that says Sarah is “the only thing I cared for,” much as Emile says of Nellie in South Pacific; both of these men are fathers, and have something else very worthwhile to care for.)

But there’s still plenty of Good America shown in the musical. When Tateh (Robert Petkoff) promises his daughter, “Apple pie from off a china plate, pretty dresses, pretty dolls,” he’s able to make that happen. The captain on the boat on which Father is sailing, says, “It’s men like you who will keep (this country) great.” Not exclusively, as we’ll see.

At least when the 1998 Tonys were dispensed, Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty were justifiably rewarded. Interesting that Generation X’er Flaherty, even when he was just starting out in the ‘80s, composed traditional sounding theater music. When dealing with a period piece, he felt no need to write anachronistic rock for it. Other theater writers believe that we’re now in an era where a segment of the population wants to hear rock, so rock must dictate the sound of their show. Not Flaherty. He had to write for three different classes of people with three distinct sounds in a long-ago era, and he got it all right – beautifully right, stirringly right, from each waltz to (of course) ragtime song.

Ahrens' work is just as impressive. Look at the beautiful subtext of “Our Children,” as Mother and the Baron sing about their kids bonding, when they’re really bonding themselves. “He Wanted to Say” offers a moment that Bertolt Brecht would have admired (and he was not an easy man to impress). But perhaps Ahrens’ best moment comes in “Back to Before.” Saturday’s audience gives it the strongest applause of all. Sure, we’re thrilled by Christiane Noll’s galvanic rendition and the melody, too – but the message and implications of the song get their due, too.

McNally, of course, was the ol’ pro of the group; Flaherty was still in his terrible twos when the playwright first saw his work on Broadway. But, oh, did McNally distill a difficult and long novel extraordinarily well. And if you don’t shed a tear at the end of the show, when we have a brand new family of five, then don’t bother trying to be my friend.

Has there ever been a more wonderful human being ever shown in musical theater than Mother? (Credit to Ragtime novelist E.L. Doctorow, too, of course.) The average woman of her station who discovered “a Negro child” in her backyard would have snarled, “Oh, get this filthy thing away from me.” Mother’s inclination is instead to provide for both mother and child. That’s not your average New Rochelle housewife today, let alone in 1906. Mother always does the right and noble thing, no matter how many obstacles (such as her husband) are in her way. Late in the show, Younger Brother says, “I have always loved and admired her.” You and the rest of us, bro.

Most Broadway shows get standing ovations. Some of them happen as soon as the curtain goes up for the curtain calls. Some get their standing o’s piecemeal; with a few people standing for a few cast members, and then the rest of the audience saying, ‘Oh, what the hell, why not? Let’s not feel left out, either.” But many of the Saturday matinee Ragtime crowd stands the second the show ends – BEFORE the curtain rises for the calls.

Ragtime will be one of the six of musicals that first lost the Best Musical Tony but eventually won the Best Musical Revival Tony. (Sweet Charity, Gypsy, Chicago, Into the Woods and Hair are the others.) I’d say it’s the revival of the century, but there are 91 years to go. Nevertheless, I hope that it’s still running in seven years so that its original producer Garth Drabinsky can get to see it, too.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com