Word: pippins
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This production's success is due in no small part to the tremendous enthusiasm of the cast. Rich Dikeman's Leading Player is sly, smooth, and agile. As Pippin, Justin Richardson evokes to perfection just the sort of boyish innocence and enthusiasm that the roe demands. And it's hard to believe that John D. Langdon's Charles isn't an emperor: his physical authority and voice really hold the stage. As Catherine, Pippins's final love. Susan Power conveys warms and sincerity, and on the opposite end of the scale. Ann Henry's Fastrada captures well the brashly devious...
...Holy Roman Empire may have been much bigger than Long Island, but you wouldn't think so after seeing the musical Pippin (Book by Roger O. Hirson, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz), now enjoying a lively and entertaining production at Dunster House. A rather curious musical, it is history deflated to suburban proportions, via Broadway. Pippin (Justin Richardson) is an average upper-middle class college overachiever; his dad. Charlemagne (John D. Langdon), a gruff executive type; Fastrada (Ann Henry), his mother, a matron right out of the Five Towns area; and Lewis (Mark Morland), his younger brother, the ancient...
...world where Harvard Law School hasn't been invented yet, and Success means Sucession. Pippin sets out to find true fulfillment, charging into War, sliding into Flesh, plotting Revolution, and finally finding the answer to his burning question smouldering in The Hearth--the simple life of the family, with a widow Catherine (Susan Power...
UNFORTUNATELY, THE TWO elements--the plain story and the theatrics--never quite mesh sufficiently. The success of Pippin is basically proportional to the amount of time the Leading Player stays on stage. When the musical is at its most stylized, it works best. In numbers like "War is a Science." "Simple Joys," or "On the Right Track," the music sparkles, the lyrics are clever, and the staging is amusingly effective. It's when it strives for simplicity and sincerity that Pippin falls a little short. Songs like "Corner of the Sky" the leitmotiv for the whole musical, are just...
Thanks to Brian Sands's direction, the production moves along at good pace, rarely flagging at the occasional rough spots. Dunster Drama's Pippin is a lively show, and if Pippin himself isn't too much of a role model in today's preprofessional world, his is an entertaining story nonetheless...