Pippin, Signature Theatre, Arlington, VA

 

Cedric Neal (center) as the Leading Player with the company of Pippin at Signature Theatre. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

“We’ve got magic to do / Just for you” is a lyric from the opening number of the 1972 musical Pippin, now onstage at Arlington’s Signature Theatre. And the show delivers – with literal gasp-producing magic illusions interspersed throughout the show.

Based on a couple of real historical characters from the 9^th century, King Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire and his son Pippin, everything else is a theatrical invention. The musical was the first by composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz who would eventually write Godspell and Wicked, to name the two most successful follow-ups. Although Roger O. Hirson is credited with the libretto, the fingerprints of original director/choreographer Bob Fosse are all over the material. Fosse’s contributions essentially breathed life into the framework that Hirson and Schwartz created, pushing the show into riskier and darker content.

What we get in Signature’s Pippin owes its essence to those Fosse-esque touches. On the page, Pippin is essentially a musical for the whole family, but as staged, it is not suitable for children and likely to offend some theatregoers. (I can’t recall another musical that carried a credit for an “intimacy choreographer,” in this case Chelsea Pace), nor one that needed one as much as this Pippin. Director Matthew Gardiner, choreographer Rachel Leigh Dolan, and costume designer Erik Teague, together with Pace and a daringly willing cast, emphasize the sexual elements at almost every turn, including some gender-bending.

Brayden Bambino as Pippin with Hank von Kolnitz, Calvin L'mont Cooper, and Ben Bogen in Pippin. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

At its heart, Pippin is about generational conflict, the continuous, unavoidable conflict between parents and children, and more specifically between father and son. Pippin was first produced during the Nixon administration, when the “generation gap” conflict was at a peak, between the “establishment” and free-thinking, idealistic “flower children” protesting a war they questioned highlighted that gap. That historical placement reinforces the philosophical significance of the generational conflict.

But I am getting ahead of myself here. The show begins with “the Leading Player” introducing a band of players, some of whom sport Renaissance era masks suggesting characters from commedia dell’arte. These “players” take on a variety of characters as the evening progresses. The Leading Player serves as a kind of master of ceremonies, narrator, and puppetmaster. We learn that Pippin returned from college to find his father, Charlemagne, now married to Fastrada, a voluptuous, unscrupulous, and ambitious (primarily for her son Lewis) woman, who is cunning and manipulative. Pippin has not found the fulfillment he seeks in his education. He thinks that perhaps going to war by joining his father’s army will do the trick. Pippin is overly enthusiastic, then appalled by the death and destruction he witnesses.

Cedric Neal as the Leading Player with the company of Pippin. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

He seeks advice from his grandmother, who has been exiled by Fastrada. Now 67, the feisty, not-dead-yet Berthe tells Pippin he needs to live life to the fullest every day, and that despite the ravages of age (“cataracts and catarrh,” she cites as examples), the only thing she would wish for is 67 more years of the same. Pippin samples a variety of sexual encounters, but ultimately finds them hollow and unfulfilling. 

Fastrada gets wind that Pippin may be planning to challenge his father for the throne. She encourages him and tells him that Charlemagne will soon be going to Arles for his yearly prayer. Disguised as a monk, Pippin hesitates at first to strike his father, but finally does so. Now king, Pippin soon discovers that governing is not as easy as it seems. He decides that peasants should own the land they work, but that angers the landowners, who now have no income with which to pay taxes. Simple enough: Pippin bans taxes. But without taxes, there is no money to pay the army, which is about to be attacked. The only way out of this quandary is to undo all of the decisions he has just enacted. Being king isn’t what he thought it would be, so Pippin requests that the Leading Player undo Charlemagne’s murder. Pippin next turns to art, which also fails to fulfill him (he notes that, when budgets are cut, arts are the first things to go).

Pippin eventually encounters a young widow farm owner (Catherine), who has a son (Theo), who has a duck (Otto). Catherine could use some help on the farm, which Pippin comes to see as useless work. He tries to form a bond of sorts with Theo, who rejects his attempts, but finally makes contact when Otto becomes sick. Pippin is unable to help the duck and soon finds the repetitive chores meaningless. He and Catherine have developed feelings for each other but he leaves, still trying to find himself. The Leading Player admonishes the actress playing Catherine, that she has strayed from the script. Pippin’s and Catherine’s budding romance wasn’t in the plan.

Awa Sal Secka as Catherine (center) with Candace Hatakeyama, Alanna Sibrian, and Georgia Monroe in Pippin. Photo credit: Daniel Rader. 

The Leading Player, along with the other players, tries to convince Pippin that the only way that he can achieve greatness is one grand gesture, which involves becoming one with the sun. Pippin says no, joined by Catherine and Theo. Furious, the Leading Player pronounces the “play” being presented by the players is over, dismissing the rest of the company and stripping the three of them of any form of artifice. They are left alone. In the final moments of the show, little Theo plaintively sings some of the song (“Corner of the Sky”) Pippin had sung at the beginning of the play, then walks up a stairway toward the Leading Player, suggesting that Theo will engage in the same kind of quest for meaning that Pippin has.

As always at Signature, the production values are first-rate. Staged in arena style, the audience is very much a part of the action, with actors and dancers coming within inches of audience members, often approaching them individually, which causes joy among some and unease among others.

Scenic designers Christopher and Justin Swader have created a stage that is dominated by a circular platform of several levels with a mirrored or reflective floor. At the center are movable panels, which allow for things to appear and disappear from time to time, to great comic effect in the first act and anticipated horror at the end of the second. One corner of the stage features a stairway to an arch through which the Leading Player appears and later is used for a number of significant entrances and exits throughout the show. Each of the other three corners of the stage features an arch, through which the audience, actors, and stage crew enter. As the audience enters, the stage reflects points of light above, suggesting stars in the sky. A few set pieces are brought on at times, but changes in location and emphasis are largely created by Adam Honorė’s lighting design. (At times, however, there seemed to be too much light – or light with too much intensity; I had to shield my eyes to be able to see what was happening.) Erik Teague’s costume designs are an outrageous pastiche ranging from period garments to barely-there underclothes for both men and women, sometimes without regard to gender. Significant contributions also come from sound designer Eric Norris, wig designer Anne Nesmith, and “illusions consultant” Ryan Phillips. The work of choreographer Rachel Leigh Dolan, fight choreographer Casey Kaleba, and the previously-mentioned intimacy choreographer Chelsea Pace is seamlessly integrated and performed with precision by the talented and athletic cast. Signature musical director Jon Kalbfleisch elicits outstanding vocal performances from the cast and makes his 11-member orchestra sound much larger.

Ryan Sellers as Lewis and Maria Rizzo as Fastrada in Pippin. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

Cedric Neal gives a charismatic performance as the Leading Player, creating an almost-reptilian presence as the Leading Player. Brayden Bambino brings a certain earnestness (if not quite innocence) to the role of Pippin, winning the audience’s favor. Eric Hissom’s Charlemagne is suitably regal, while also revealing his ineptitude and disinterest in his son. Ryan Sellers as Fastrada’s son (and Pippin’s half-brother) demonstrates his physical superiority simultaneously with his intellectual inferiority. Awa Sal Secka, whom I admired in Arena Stage’s recent Chez Joey and Signature’s 2023 Ragtime, brings a light touch (and her soaring soprano) to the role of Catherine, as well as a sense of vulnerability, joined by the adorable Elison Bihm as her son.

For me, though, the two stand-out performances are those of Maria Rizzo as Fastrada and Naomi Jacobson as Berthe. Rizzo is a Signature staple I have seen in at least half a dozen Signature productions. She is always immensely watchable. In Pippin, she combines sensuality and feigned innocence as “just a normal housewife and mother,” but in fact, she is a masterful, vindictive manipulator. Her big number, “Spread a Little Sunshine” begins as a plaintive request for good behavior, but by the end, it is almost a threat. Jacobson, whom I most recently saw in the February Woolly Mammoth/Theater J co-production of The World to Come in a very different role, infuses Berthe with an impish presence and great humor. She is still very much alive and quite lustful, refusing to be defined by her status as a grandmother. Berthe leads the audience in singing along the refrain of her big number, “No Time at All,” for which the audience has been given a card with the music and lyrics.

Naomi Jacobson (center) as Berthe with Braden Bambino as Pippin (seated) with the cast of Pippin. Photo credit: Daniel Rader.

Pippin would have little impact if not for the performances of the "Players," who may be the hardest-working, erotic, sharpest, and most energetic ensemble Signature has ever put on the stage: Ben Bogen, Calvin L'mont Cooper, Candice Hatakeyama, Georgia Monroe, Alanna Sibrian, Jacob Tayklor Starks, Emily Steinhardt, and Hank von Kolnitz.  

Signature’s Pippin is an intriguing spectacle, being given a memorable production, which continues through July 26. Now more than 50 years has passed since it debuted, but its themes are just as relevant today as they were when it opened.