Review: PIPPIN at Arizona Broadway Theatre

There is something wonderfully deceptive about PIPPIN. On the surface, it’s a musical about a young prince who wants to do something extraordinary with his life. It gives him wars to fight, kingdoms to conquer, women to pursue, a father to challenge…and, in Arizona Broadway Theatre’s exhilarating new production, a theatrical universe in which meaning and gravity seem negotiable.

Director Lynzee Foreman, making her mainstage directorial debut at ABT, and her creative team have given the Stephen Schwartz/Roger O. Hirson musical a bodacious physical vocabulary of aerial artistry, acrobatics and theatrical illusion. And yet, the production’s great achievement is that the spectacle doesn’t overwhelm or distract from the story.

The world into which Pippin charges is seductive, artificial, funny, dangerous and occasionally unsettling. It’s precisely the kind of world in which a young man might believe that significance is something that happens to people who are willing to perform hard enough for it. Everything that dazzles Pippin also distracts him, and watching that realization unfold is the real magic of this production.

That makes Matthew Richards, Jr.'s Pippin especially important to the production's success. Richards doesn’t play Pippin simply as an ambitious young man looking for adventure. There is an appealing vulnerability underneath his ambition, a sense of someone who has been told that he ought to become something remarkable but has no idea what that actually means. That uncertainty is already reflected in "Corner of the Sky," which is easy to hear as a young man’s declaration of independence. By "Morning Glow," which closes Act I, it has been drowned out by the show’s most intoxicating triumph: Pippin has seized his father’s throne, a cheering crowd hails the dawn of a new age, and greatness appears to be his for the taking.

Pippin’s is a surprisingly contemporary predicament. Pippin wants his life to matter, but he assumes it will count only if it is grand and never routine.

Nobody tests that assumption more provocatively than Jazmin Noel Moehring's Leading Player. Moehring gives the role an authority that is considerably more interesting than simple theatrical flamboyance. She is alluring without being merely seductive, commanding without becoming authoritarian, and always seems to understand something about Pippin that Pippin himself has yet to grasp. She is the voice of the show, telling Pippin, and by extension us, that ordinary existence is not enough. Moehring’s performance makes her character a brilliantly persuasive salesperson for a life of perpetual performance.

James Rio brings a different kind of authority to Charles, Pippin's father. There is humor in the characterization, but Rio also gives Charles an unexpected humanity, notwithstanding his relentless desire to wage war and conquer the world. He is not simply the older generation standing between a young man and his destiny. He is Pippin's fantasy already realized: a man who has won battles, built an empire and become legendary, yet remains a flawed, fallible father. Charles is living proof that glory doesn’t make a life any more meaningful.

Sarah Morgan's Fastrada, Pippin’s cunning and manipulative stepmother, understands exactly what she wants and how to get it. Morgan gives her a deliciously sharp intelligence, making Fastrada considerably more than the scheming stepmother the plot might initially suggest. As Pippin’s half-brother, Lewis, Steven Martella mines all his muscle-bound vanity for big laughs without ever becoming a cartoon.

Then there is Carolyn McPhee's Berthe, Pippin’s grandmother, who delivers the show's core lesson: life doesn’t have to be spectacular to be extraordinary. McPhee brings warmth, humor and an appealing affection for her grandson. When she takes center stage, the production switches from spectacle to something simpler and warmer: a sing-along invitation, in "No Time at All," to stop chasing glory and live.

Marina Jarrette's Catherine, a widow raising her young son, Theo, provides another necessary counterweight to Pippin's obsession with grandeur. Jarrette resists turning Catherine into simply the destination at the end of Pippin's romantic journey. There is a grounded quality to her performance that helps make the domestic life Pippin initially regards as insufficient feel like an actual alternative rather than merely the sentimental ending the musical requires.

The circus atmosphere of the show is more than decoration. Catrina Contini's choreography and Renee Koher's aerial and circus work create a world of constant motion and discovery, with the ensemble functioning not merely as supporting players but as the machinery through which Pippin's imagination and temptations are made visible. In numbers such as "Magic to Do" and "Glory," Contini’s choreography also channels the unmistakable style of Bob Fosse, who directed and choreographed the original 1972 production, capturing his sly isolations, rolling shoulders and angular, turned-in poses so effectively that his fingerprints seem to be all over the stage.

The more spectacular the world becomes, the more clearly Pippin's dissatisfaction is exposed. And, in that regard, the rivers and eagles of "Corner of the Sky," so certain of where they belong, take on a different meaning by the end. Pippin finally recognizes the trap in his search for that perfect "corner." But with Catherine and Theo behind him, he seems happy to be caught.

The bottom line: Arizona Broadway Theatre's PIPPIN dazzles, and, as the dazzle peaks, it asks us to reflect on just what it is we’re all searching for.

PIPPIN runs through November 8th at Arizona Broadway Theatre -- https://azbroadway.org/ -- 7701 W. Paradise Lane, Peoria, AZ -- 623-776-8400

Photo credit to ABT: Jazmin Noel Moehring as The Leading Player

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