firstfrost: (Default)
firstfrost ([personal profile] firstfrost) wrote2004-04-23 10:41 am

Pippin

Went to an Emerson production of Pippin with [livejournal.com profile] tirinian and tirinian's mom. I'd never seen it before, though I'm well familiar with the music, so much of my reaction was based on startlement about the plot.

He kills his father and takes the throne. Then when things don't go so well, he takes it back! He takes it back? And his father gets back up again! You can't usually do takebacks on that sort of thing.

And then, at the end, the narrator and the chorus try to get him to SET HIMSELF ON FIRE. Okay, I wasn't expecting that. But it's really the sort of thing I'd fall for. If the narrator of my life tried to convince me it was time to die, I'd believe them. Luckily, I don't think I have a narrator, and especially not an Evil Narrator. (Evil narrators - that was the problem the poor family in Blood Brothers had, too...)

The Lead Player was marvelous. Smooth and graceful, spooky and mischevious, with a lovely coat and hat (most of the time) and a voice that covered the entire range of expressive that the songs do. Pippin was good, too - again, he made all the singing sound easy. The character is callow and annoying, so I didn't like him as much, but that was probably to the actor's credit.

The costumes - I had always imagined the chorus as more... brightly colored. Festive and circus-colored. But these were mostly all in black, and either the lighting or the makeup made them very pale and hollow-eyed. Hmm. Sort of like the undead Puck at the ART. Anyway. Pippin was the main brightly-colored or white costume, and he ended up reminding me of early Luke Skywalker ("Awww, Uncle Owen! I don't want to work on the water recyclers! I want to go to the Academy and fight the Visigoths!")

As with many non-professional productions, the leads were miked and the chorus not, so the big numbers were sometimes quieter than the solos. Ah well.

"Cats fit on the windowsill
Children fit in the snow
Why do I feel I don't fit in, anywhere I go?"

[identity profile] twe.livejournal.com 2004-04-23 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
Okay, I saw this years ago, and also remember being startled by the plot being much darker than I was expecting somehow from the name ("pippin" - "hobbits" what can I say?) Specifically, the evil narrator at the end who tries to get him to blow himself up to go out with a bang (creepy).

But I seem to have forgotten the earlier bits of the plot about killing fathers and thrones and what not. Hmm.