Sleight of hand
and an onslaught of acrobatic genius make the A.R.T.’s PIPPIN (playing through
Jan. 20th) an old fashioned vaudeville hit. Back in the early days
of the tradition, song and dance would be performed side by side with clowns,
animal acts and lots of acrobatic derring-do. You’ll find them all in director
Diane Paulus’ stunning revival, due to open on Broadway in April.
What made PIPPIN
shine forty years ago was Bob Fosse’s cynical choreography for Stephen Schwartz
and Roger Hirson’s episodic musical. Chet Walker’s dynamic dancing at the
A.R.T. is still (styled after) Fosse but what ups the ante in Cambridge is a circus! Paulus tapped the
talents of the Canadian troupe, Les 7 Droights de la Main (the 7 fingers of the
hand) for the impressive legerdemain (from the French “light of hand”).
Back in the
800s, Pippin wants to experience more in life than his famous father has in
thirty years of war. History doesn’t heap praise on Charlemagne’s son but
history has little to do with the musical. The charming but inexperienced
Pippin (Matthew James Thomas), like Candide before him, travels the word only
to discover that happiness is found in one’s own back yard. (Now he sounds like
Dorothy!) He journeys from pillar to post in this “anecdotic revue,” committing
and un-committing patricide, ruling and un-ruling his subjects and loving and
un-loving and re-loving a mother, her son and a duck.
I’ve seen Gypsy
Snider’s troupe before, performing acrobatic impossibilities better than any
circus troupe I’ve ever seen but I always thought there ought to be more. What
was missing was PIPPIN! Paulus and company create the perfect synthesis of
magic and story.
See PIPPIN for
the acrobatics. See it for Patina Miller in all her “Glory” as the sizzling
emcee. See it for Terrence Mann’s cheeky, Gilbert & Sullivan turn as
Charlemagne, describing the vicissitudes of war. See it for Charlotte
d’Amboise’s naughty step-mother but most of all, see it for Andrea Martin’s no
holds barred granny!
