Theater Review: PIPPIN (Jaxx Theatricals)

PIPPIN GOES HOLLYWOOD

Pippin, with music and lyrics supplied by Stephen Schwartz,  and book penned by Roger O. Hirson  (who was best known for writing the script to the war flick The Bridge at Remagen) may have been an oddity when it opened on Broadway in 1972, given the choice of the central character, but that didn’t prevent it from running a whopping 1,944 performances. Bob Fosse’s context—a stylized, sexual and darkly Vaudevillian context—added enough pell-mell diabolical dazzle that the fairly feeble book became one colorful, magical, musical, rhythmic body as it parodied the futility of war, power, and the burgeoning sexual revolution.

If you managed to stay awake during European History class, you might remember Pippin’s father, a Frankish warrior king who was so good at warring and kingly stuff that he got a whole age named after him: “The Age of Charlemagne.” Pippin, however, was nowhere near the go-getter his dad was and ended up less than a historical footnote—more like a little-toe-note. Born in  768 CE, or thereabout, the actual history of Pippin (or Pepin) is brief and drab (not great source material for a musical. Pepin remains all but unknown except to scholars of the Carolingian Renaissance, and those of us unlucky enough to have been cornered at a party by one.

The musical opens with a touch of the medieval, as a traveling troupe of performers appears with the Leading Player announcing they bring a play for all to see, in the fashion of how players during the Middle Ages traveled town to town performing morality plays. But there ends the history for Schwartz and Hirson, whose interest was not religion, but social morality.

During the ’60s, Americans believed they could fix all of society’s problems. Sadly, that belief ended in Los Angeles with Bobby Kennedy lying on the kitchen floor at the Ambassador Hotel. While Pippin played on Broadway, disillusionment with politics, Watergate, and the Vietnam War was growing thick, America was rethinking her gung-ho egocentrism. But the radical counterculture of the 1960s—evident in the fabulous falderal of Fosse’s Pippin—would soon give way to the ubiquitous happy, yellow smiling face of the 70s, when Americans retreated, turning away from the world and focusing on themselves, seeking a greater sense of self-fulfillment. They experimented with everything from aerobics to macrobiotic diets; from Primal Screaming to crystal therapy. What began with “Porno chic, Moonies and Jesus freaks,” ended with the AIDS epidemic, Jonestown and way too many home bookshelves with copies of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Cierra Watkins

Jeremy Lucas, the Artistic Director of Jaxx Theatre, may have recognized that we seem to be entering an internet “Dark Age” of our own, and has reinterpreted the show of the “Me Decade” to speak directly to fame-obsessed denizens of the “Kardashian Decade.” Under his direction and choreography, Pippin has become a cautionary tale about “Tinsel Town” and the hazards of life in the fast lane. He opens with a celebrity chorus line of individuals—Marilyn, Elvis, Prince, Pee Wee Herman, Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers—for whom fame would prove as fatal as hemlock, who kick off with one of the greatest all-time opening numbers, “Magic to Do,” sung by the company and Leading Player (Cierra Watkins, displaying the gusto needed for this role).

Jacob Walter

After a crowd-pleasing rendition of this tune, we meet Pippin, played by Jacob Walter, who manages the wide-eyed innocence of someone fresh off a Greyhound bus from Nebraska. His first solo number is Pippin’s introductory ditty, “Corner of the Sky.” Normally, an expression of longing for the attainment of self-fulfillment, Lucas refocuses the objective here to the desire for fame.

Part of Lucas’s method for achieving this is in his shrewd use of projections, labeling portions of the narrative arc with iconic signposts of the rise to stardom: the rapid growth of followers on Twitter; the GRAMMYS; The Emmys”; headlines from Variety, the Oscars, and the front page of a scandal sheet.  Occasionally, an apt quote is employed, such as Oscar Wilde’s “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

The Cast

The production adheres to a metatheatrical narrative structure, with the actors drawing the audience in. (Wisely, Lucas passes out ornate masks for those to don who are willing to play along, thus allowing shyer audience members, and those of us who need to take notes, to be free from participation.) As the performance continues, Lucas strategically increases the cast’s interactions with the audience.

The show covers what little is known of Pippin’s life, while making sure the audience knows even that information isn’t certain. The libretto is about a prince searching for fulfillment in the realm of his father. Constructed like Children’s Theater—although it’s clearly for the older crowd, dealing with regicide, combat, and lust, to name a few—the first act is a chain of scenes (most with a character who appears only once): Pippin as warrior; Pippin as king; Pippin as sex machine. Act II has the depressed prince attempting domesticity with a widow and her young son. Then he’s back to his futile quest, egged on all the while by a chorus of street performers and the Leading Player, a Sportin’ Life emcee who devilishly urges Pippin to explore facets of life that, once discovered to be empty, may lead the youth to despair and maybe even suicide.

We see Pippin interact with his dad King Charles the Great, (a.k.a. Charlemagne,) here played with grand flair by Brian Whisenant as a golf-playing Elvis with a long red scarf who is vaguely reminiscent of someone. We also meet Pippin’s stepmother Fastrada (Jill Marie Bruke, a very sexual Machiavellian) and her plot to make a king out of her doltish son Lewis (JD Morabito). Dad leads his sons off to battle (“War Is a Science”), but fame as a warrior is not going to work for Pippin, which he decides following a discussion on the merits of armed conflict with the severed head of a former enemy (Hann Crews).

Brian Whisenant

The second act’s top number is the meeting between Pippin and his grandmother, Berthe, languishing in exile. Lisa Stanley, in the persona of Joan Rivers, does a show-stopping high-kicking rendition of “No Time at All,” with Lucas giving a twist to those pleasures of life she’s crooning about by adding a carnal coating with his choreography.

Lisa Stanley and Jacob Walter

The second act begins with a projection of Jesus Christ, followed by images of Judy Garland, George Reeves, Robin Williams, Princess Di, and other celebrities who, for our sins, came to a bad end. Pippin, cut off from every avenue to fame, has withdrawn from life. Then he is taken in by a widow, Catherine (Kara M. Young) and her young son Theo (Judah Avery Young). Not only is the Leading Player determined that nothing will come from this relationship—as Catherine is played by one of the chorus singers and not a real “actress”—but Pippin is painfully aware that he is way out of her league, a situation he affirms in the song “Extraordinary,” in which he humbly commends himself.

Kara M. Young and Jacob Walter

Young and Watkins will share the beautiful “Love Song,” followed by the gorgeous “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man,” a finale, a revelation, and the stage debut of Jorjiss EverRose, a dachshund puppy so cute it all but steals the show.

It shouldn’t be surprising how well this show holds up after nearly fifty years; after all, Schwartz is currently enjoying a bit of success with Wicked. (Hirson passed away in 2019 at the age of 93.)

The Cast in The Finale

In addition to the music, finely delivered by musical director and conductor James Lent, Jaxx’s Pippin has a great deal going for it. Excellent costumes by Lucas, Morabito, and Keny Marine—Ana Rosa Cortes doing the sewing—an elaborate lighting scheme by Atticus Jones, and solid stage dressing by Colin Tracy, Morabito and Lucas. The show is a treat for the senses.

While there are some truly fine singers and dancers in the show, not all members in the company can claim to be either. Still, what this cast lacks in that regard, they more than make up for with genuine heart, which they have in abundance. Lucas does the show proud, pays homage to Fosse, and succeeds admirably in Pippin being entertaining from start to finish.

photos courtesy of Jaxx Theatricals

Pippin
Jaxx Theatricals
The Jaxx Theatre, 5432 Santa Monica Blvd in Los Angeles
ends on July 13, 2025
for tickets, visit Showclix
for more info, visit Jaxx