Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- It is good to have “Ragtime” back on Broadway. The 1998 show, with book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, is a significant musical that narrowly misses being a great one. Even so, compared to what nowadays passes for a great musical (“Wicked,” for example), “Ragtime” is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Based on a fine novel by E.L. Doctorow, the musical touches on the struggles of blacks and Jews in the early 20th century to succeed in a world that was, despite notable exceptions, less than sympathetic to them.

McNally’s book valiantly gives us the essentials of the sprawling novel in which a black ragtime pianist, Coalhouse Walker Jr., fathers an illegitimate son with a girl named Sarah, who (somewhat far-fetchedly) abandons the baby in the garden of an affluent white family in the New York suburb of New Rochelle.

Father is off with Admiral Peary on a polar expedition when Mother discovers the infant and adopts both it and its mother.

Coalhouse keeps coming to visit, though Sarah for a long time won’t see him, even as Mother and her Little Boy (the fictional white characters are given these generic names) warm to him. So, too, does Mother’s Younger Brother, turned liberal, partly through Emma Goldman’s speeches, partly through his own unconventional infatuation with the showgirl Evelyn Nesbit, over whom the mad millionaire Harry Thaw jealously killed the architect Stanford White.

Harry Houdini

Doctorow cleverly interwove these historical figures with his fictional ones, also bringing in Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, Harry Houdini and Booker T. Washington, as McNally’s libretto, however foreshortened, does too.

Vicious white racists vandalize Coalhouse’s beloved Model T Ford, and idiot policemen kill Sarah, mistaking her for a murderous anarchist, when she tries to appeal to the visiting vice president for justice.

Whereupon Coalhouse turns leader of an avenging black gang, which results in tragedy.

At the same time, we get the story of the Latvian immigrant Tateh (Yiddish for Daddy) and the Little Girl, his daughter. Tateh evolves into a Hollywood film director and Mother, now also widowed, ends up marrying him and going off into the sunset with their two children and the orphaned Coalhouse Walker III.

Fantasy Elements

There is, of course, much more too it, including some fantasy elements, but it all serves well enough as framework for a delightful score that has a few terrific numbers -- ragtime, blues, hymns -- along with a few merely adequate ones.

The original production had a combination of realistic and whimsical scenery by Eugene Lee. The revival has a spectacular three-tiered unit set that suggests the main pavilion of some World’s Fair on which the brilliant designer Derek McLane works minor changes for different locations that -- except for ships at sea and a baseball game -- work very nicely.

Santo Loquasto, the original costume designer, again provides jaunty costumes and Donald Holder contributes versatile lighting including some fetching shadow play.

Marcia Milgrom Dodge’s staging is generally effective, though her choreography is somewhat less inventive than Graciela Daniele’s back in 1998.

Vocal Prowess

The current cast was apparently chosen for vocal prowess, with acting and looks secondary. Ron Bohmer’s Father is too much of an overgrown college drama star; Christiane Noll’s Mother a bit too pinched of face and squeaky of speaking voice.

I liked Bobby Steggert’s intense, radical Mother’s Younger Brother and Stephanie Umoh’s touching Sarah, unfortunate wig notwithstanding. Robert Petkoff’s otherwise competent Tateh lacked wry wit. My main problem was with Quentin Earl Darrington’s Coalhouse, as physically unprepossessing as powerfully sung.

What really carries this revival are William David Brohn’s almost miraculous orchestrations and Flaherty’s vocal arrangements, especially masterly for the all-important, ubiquitous chorus. What you see may rate only a respectable B+, but what you hear earns a resounding A.

At the Neil Simon Theater, 250 W. 52nd St. Information: +1- 877-250-2929; http://www.ticketmastercom. Rating: ***-1/2

What the Stars Mean:
****       Do Not Miss
***        Excellent
**         Average
*          Poor
(No stars) Worthless

(John Simon is the New York drama critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: John Simon in New York at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: November 15, 2009 22:30 EST