Picture: Edward Johnson
Pippin continues at the Charing Cross Theatre, London until 14 August 2021.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Ever since I laid my hands on the Broadway cast recording I’ve loved this Stephen Schwartz score. Its dreamy ballads in the hands of its central character Pippin, the son of warmongering Charlemagne, its rhythmic show pieces for the Leading Player and Company and a great comic number for his grandmother Berthe.
It was a great many years before I finally saw it on stage, and its message of dreams and hopes and the joys of a simple life has dimmed over time. The piece was first staged in 1967 and found its way to Broadway in 1972, the tail end of the Flower Power era, the protests against the Vietnam war.
Director Steven Dexter has set his production in the Hippy era, the Charing Cross Theatre reconfigured with the audience on two sides, which also utilises backstage space and no doubt allows for better social distancing for the audience. The walls are draped with hangings and strings of lights hover over the players to great effect (set and costumes by David Shields, lighting by Aaron J. Dootson).
Ian Carlyle thrills as the Leading Player. His voice soars effortlessly as he dances and dominates the stage. Marshalling his players, he unfolds the story, history filtered through the prism of Broadway.
Charlemagne (Daniel Krikler) and his beefcake son Lewis (Alex James-Hatton) are keen to wage war on the Visigoths. Krikler makes the most of his only (as he moans to us) song, ‘War is a Science’, the entire hardworking cast of eight roped in with energetic pseudo 70s choreography by Nick Winston, at times with a nod to Twyla Tharp’s choreography for the film Hair, at others a nod to Bob Fosse. Diction is exemplary (credit to sound designer Keegan Curran too).
The original London and Broadway casts had theatre veterans in their seventies playing Pippin’s grandmother Berthe. Genevieve Nicole doesn’t fall into the trap of old lady acting, but plays her as a slightly dotty woman, bringing the house down in her song bemoaning the passing of time, ‘No Time At All’.
Ryan Anderson is quite a different Pippin. He sings his opening song ‘Corner of the Sky’ with lovely phrasing and intent, but the dreamy anti-war stance of the character sits oddly with his superb, athletic, dancing. Should Ivo van Hove’s West Side Story cross to London he’d be a shoo-in for a part. He sings and acts with great sincerity, but I just wasn’t persuaded by this production’s take on the role.
As Charlemagne’s love interest and Pippin’s stepmother Fastrada, Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson shows us what a multi-talented performer she is, and Natalie McQueen sings prettily as Catherine, Pippin’s love interest.
Dexter’s production seizes on the dancing talents of his cast to ramp up the energy whenever he can, but I found his decision to undercut the achingly beautiful ‘Love Song’ between Catherine and Pippin with a giggly awkwardness lessened its impact. Act I races along to the interval. Act II drags a little, until we get to a finale where Carlyle injects a fierce drama into the events, with Theo (Jaydon Vijn) as Catherine’s son bringing it to a moving low key ending.
Pippin is a score that deserves to be resurrected at frequent intervals. This production doesn’t quite come together, but that’s probably because of the limitations of a cast of eight. Similarly, scoring Schwartz’s score for keyboard and guitar doesn’t show it at its best, despite the best efforts of Chris Ma (keyboards) and Sam Ainslie/Nick Hill (guitar).
Go see it, laugh at its corny humour, as the performers break the fourth wall to address the happenings in Brechtian style, just as Fosse did later in Chicago.
Listen to the score, revel in the energy of the dancing, and enjoy being part of a live audience once again.
Leon Ferguson
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