‘Pippin’ reigns at Little Theatre of Norfolk – The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK — The historical past of the highly effective might be powerfully complicated.

Most of us have at the very least heard the title Charlemagne, the primary of the Holy Roman emperors, however to not be confused along with his ally, the pope. Charlemagne lived circa 747-814 and conquered most of Western Europe: France, Germany, Italy and a speck of Spain the Moors had someway missed.

Charlemagne’s father was Pepin (= Pippin) the Quick. However that’s not our titular Pippin. Charlemagne had plenty of kids, two of whom he confusingly named Pippin. One was a hunchback who tried to kill Charlemagne and, in keeping with author Lawrence Henley, was then exiled to a monastery. However he wasn’t our titular Pippin, both. The opposite one was. I feel.

This complicated redundancy of names is correctly mocked within the opening scenes of the musical “Pippin” (music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz; ebook by Roger O. Hirson) enjoying by means of Sept. 4 at Little Theatre of Norfolk. LTN, at 96 years outdated (historic by American requirements), places the “neighborhood” in “neighborhood theater” with this newest pip of a present. An all-volunteer forged and crew of academics, school college students, retirees and households of scenic sculptors (three named Vanderwerker) and prop constructors (4 named Tunstall), “placed on a present” with extra sass and satire than Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland ever mustered for his or her cinematic barn spectacles. Director Amy Harbin, a tutor for the Norfolk Public Faculties, doubles, for example, as a scene painter. Ensemble member Ashlee Rey doubles as a suspended-hoop acrobat to entertain patrons at intermission. And the romantic feminine lead, Rebecca Weinstein, steps onstage from her day job as an on-air announcer for WHRO-FM (“Mid-day Classics” and “Present Tune Café”).

Nearly all of the actors have performed roles in different neighborhood venues, such because the Little Theatre of Virginia Seashore. Some — equivalent to ShaaNi Dent and Rey — have even trodden the skilled boards at Virginia Stage Firm’s Wells Theatre. However right here, all carry out for love. It takes a neighborhood of altruistic actors to make this magic, because the present’s earworm opener “Magic to Do” makes clear. It’s sung by the Main Participant, Maya Garcia, within the ringmaster half made well-known on Broadway by a hyper-talented Ben Vereen. So let the sardonic circus start!

Our unique conjurer, composer Schwartz, after all, guidelines his personal magical musical empire because the writer of a mighty triumvirate of blockbuster exhibits: “Godspell” (1971), “Pippin” (1972), and, coming quickly once more to Chrysler Corridor, “Depraved” (2003). Add to that “The Magic Present,” “The Baker’s Spouse,” “Working” and parts of Disney’s “Enchanted,” “Pocahontas” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and you’ll think about the royalties rolling in for Schwartz.

“Pippin” was one in all his scholar scripts again at Carnegie Mellon College within the Sixties. The plot is solely a younger man’s quest for existential which means. Pippin, properly performed right here by Cory Steiger, begins out as a scholar simply out of the College of Padua (which wouldn’t be based for an additional 4 or so centuries).

Charlemagne is illiterate however appreciates his eldest respectable son’s new tutorial creds. However Pippin, now and all the time, desires extra. His stepbrother Lewis (vigorous John M. Put up) is a gifted (= heartless) warrior. Pippin tries warfare however is hindered by having a conscience. Subsequent, he tries hedonism in an attractive quantity together with a bevy of feminine beauties and one masked (as a lion) male to recommend the forbidden pleasures of homosexual encounters. In the meantime, Charlemagne (right here “Charles” for brief) goes about his ordinary process of forcibly changing 1000’s of pagans into Christians. They’re given a easy alternative: baptism or beheading.

Pippin recoils at his father’s brutality. All of a sudden he turns into a revolutionary, spouting slogans about justice for all, nonetheless pertinent to Twenty first-century ears. This new incarnation of Pippin seems promising till …, uh-oh, he decides to assassinate his father (performed with unflappable comedian composure by Celestino J. Damiano). However that’s what the hunchbacked Pippin tried to do! (Pippin confusion error, Schwartz and Hirson?) So, in a very weak flip of plot, the Main Participant, the all-powerful one on this play, undoes Pippin’s fake pas of patricide by merely resurrecting the fallen king. Presto! No hurt, no foul, no homicide.

Act Two brings us Pippin’s remaining existential transformation right into a farm-working attainable household man. Although he at first eschews handbook labor, a brand new factor — real love, within the type of Catherine (Weinstein) — regularly brings him round. Catherine’s little one by her deceased husband is an added attraction. Theo, the little boy, is superbly performed by Penelope Hanson, with out a trace of her precise gender. She additionally manages some credible puppetry together with her ailing pet duck. In the meantime, Pippin and Catherine, falling ever extra deeply in love, ship the night’s greatest musical efficiency: “Love Tune.” Good singing is the rarest ability of all in neighborhood musical productions.

Different gamers contribute to the success: Lisa Lowry does a intelligent rendition of Pippin’s randy grandmother Berthe, and Judy Triska reprises Pippin’s depraved stepmother Fastrada, a component she first performed 40 years in the past! Maya Garcia grows credibly darker because the all-important Main Participant, coming into threatening battle with the lovers and forged. She even yells on the pianist to “Take your rattling fingers off the keyboard!” There’s one other ill-conceived plot flip to conclude the night and be forewarned of now clichéd “jazz fingers” all through. The primary Broadway manufacturing of “Pippin” was, in spite of everything, directed by Bob Fosse, the digital inventor of these wriggling wrists.

The ultimate factor that should be praised is a communally fired-up and supportive viewers, who had been demonstrating their approval on the present I noticed, even properly into its run. Harbin deserves credit score for utilizing a communal viewers sing-along trick true to the present’s greatest impulses: “Oh, it’s time to begin livin’/ Time to take slightly from/ This world we’re given/ Time to take time, ’trigger/ Spring will flip to fall/ In simply no time in any respect.”

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Carpe diem is nice recommendation for all — the weak and the highly effective, the historic and never. Thanks for the well timed reminder, Little Theatre of Norfolk.

Web page Legal guidelines is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors Faculty at Norfolk State College. prlaws@aya.yale.edu

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When: Via Sept. 4. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays

The place: Little Theatre of Norfolk, 801 Claremont Ave., Norfolk

Tickets: $18 to $20 with reductions for teams

Particulars: ltnonline.org, 757-627-8551