Andrea Martin Will Be Berthe in Diane Paulus's PIPPIN

[somethingwicked]

Per the New York Daily News, about halfway down (following the story about Jill Zarin.) Genius casting.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/zarin-tirade-a-mad-housewife-article-1.1177888

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

I hope this isn't her idea of star casting... I mean, I love Andrea, but you can't put her above the title.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Well, that's very good.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

This is exciting!

[ACL2006]

isn't Rachelle Rak also attached to this??

[Blockhead24]

^yes

[somethingwicked]

Rak is in the ensemble, and I believe she's covering Fastrada and/or The Leading Player.

[KirbyCat]

I can't be excited enough for this production. Oh my goodness.

[ACL2006]

the entire cast has been announced. I smell a transfer.
A.R.T.'s Pippin Cast Announced

[somethingwicked]

Am I the only one who finds the casting of Rachel Bay Jones as Catherine incredibly bizzare? She's almost 40 and Matthew James Thomas, who's playing Pippin, is 23. It seems more appropriate that she'd be playing his mother in something rather than his love interest.

[FindingNamo]

Mr and Mrs Mann will bring their certain something to the proceedings.

[Wilmingtom]

I agree that RBJ make for a strange Catherine. I guess Diane just liked working with her on Hair. She wasn't really right for the role when she was younger, imo.

[JeanGudio]

but why circus acts. 7 fingers a wonderful circus company but they should stick to that. Remember tarzan???

[somethingwicked]

JeanGudio, 7 Fingers had nothing to do with TARZAN. Their most recent endeavor was the theatrical piece TRACES.

[JeanGudio]

y But tarzan tried to combine circus and theatre and so did love never dies and we all know how they went.

[EricMontreal22]

I can't tell, from the Playbill article if they are recreating (some?) of Fosse's choreography, or if Chet is just doing choreography in the Fosse style (like Reinking did the large parts of Chicago she didn't recreate). I know the odd sounding UK production from lst year (set in a video game?) did try to shoe horn Fosse's choreography, and it soundedlike an odd mix.

[Visceral_Fella]

So excited about Patina Miller!

[whatever2]

> Here's how A.R.T. bills the production: "A bold new staging of the dark and existential musical you thought you knew. Pippin, on a death-defying journey to find his 'corner of the sky,' must choose between a life that's ordinary or a flash of singular glory."

i *did* think i knew Pippin, but i've never thought of it as being existential, and i certainly don't remember it being dark.

am i sundowning early today, or has the Paulus PR machine taken its usual liberties?

[Someone in a Tree2]

Pippin's always been a wild seesaw between light and darkness. In the original production, bloody body parts are flung onstage while Vereen and co perform that slow soft-shoe glorifying war. Pippin knifes his dad to become the new king. And the finale has always been a very literal invitation to Pippin to self-immolate. Believe me, Paulus needn't do any rewriting to bring the dark to the piece.

[JeanGudio]

is MJT from spiderman

[whatever2]

Tree2: Pippin was my first Broadway musical ... I promise I have a very clear impression of it.

I do remember the elements you've mentioned, and i do of course recall them as dark (though the flying body parts i thought were played as a gag). so, sure, there's some dark there, but for lo these 3X years now my overall sense of the show has not been of darkness. the presence of dark elements does not necessarily translate into a dark story.

although you didn't mention it, i also fully appreciate that the main character spends much of the play deep in the throes of existential angst ... somehow, though, i don't think of the work itself as being existential.

moreover, on the slightly more pedantic side, i intended to question (or open up to question) the marketing department's assertion that the common understanding of the work is one of darkness and existentialism.

perhaps it's my (then) tender years combined with the wonderful melodies, but i've always thought of Pippin as one young man's journey toward finding himself.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

but i've never thought of it as being existential

Pippin's entire MO is an existential crisis.

[whatever2]

PRS: respectfully, i disagree.

imho, Pippin's entire MO is RESOLVING his existential crisis.

that arguably makes the play anti-existential, if (IF) anything.

[EricMontreal22]

I always thought Fosse's take on the material (not the authors' necessarily) was that it was a piece ultimately about suicide... But that's just my take. Either way, Fosse was smart enough to disguise a lot of the darkness that seemed to be his concept (something perhaps he had more trouble doing with his staging of Chicago but that was post his heart attack, right?)

[whatever2]

i guess another way of asking my original question would be: is the generally received understanding of pippin that it's "dark and existential"?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

I don't understand the distinction, I guess. If you think it's about him resolving his existential crisis, which I'd agree with, how does that make it anti-existential?