Evil Dead: The Musical – TITG’s Love Note to the Season

Kate Barrett, Nick Serrone, and Stevo Clay

By Tina Arth

Other theaters offer boring options like front row seating, balcony seating, aisle seating – but for Halloween 2018, Theatre in the Grove offers the chillingly unorthodox options of splash zone and splatter zone seating. Thanks to director Zachary Centers and the Forest Grove troupe’s current production of Evil Dead: The Musical, audiences can get a few hours of  “mature audiences only” respite from trick-or-treaters, Disney princesses, and all the rest of Big Candy’s assault on our official spooky season. The show is definitely not great art, but it is definitely great fun for adults who love over-the-top farce and refuse to completely grow up – think Rocky Horror on steroids, or Little Shop of Horrors on crack.

Canadian author George Reinblatt’s 2003 musical is based on the Evil Dead film series, and offers the broadest of parodies of the whole teen horror bloodbath genre. Five college students – Ash, his sister Cheryl, best friend Scott, Scott’s girlfriend Shelly, and Ash’s girlfriend Linda go off to spend the weekend in an isolated cabin in the woods. With this classic horror set-up, what can go right? While there is plenty of action and dialogue, for the careful reader the song list tells pretty much what to expect, as the cast delivers 21 musical numbers from ”Cabin in the Woods” through “It Won’t Let Us Leave”, “Join Us,” “I’m Not a Killer,” “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons,” “It’s Time,” and finally “Blew that B**** Away.”  

The toughest role goes to Nick Serrone’s “Ash” who, when not wielding chainsaws and sawed-off shotguns, is a stock boy in aisle 5 of the local S-Mart where he met cashier Linda (Aubrey Slaughter). The role of Ash was originally played by Bruce Campbell, and Serrone definitely captures some of Campbell’s bizarre heroism.  The shamelessly campy “Housewares Employee,” gives Serrone and Slaughter a chance to shine as they deliver the quintessential love anthem, and it is impossible not to compare the infatuated pair to Little Shop’s Audrey and Seymour. From an overall impressive performance, I would pick the life and death battle between Ash and his hand as Serrone’s best scene – his athletic grasp of physical comedy is breathtaking.  Stevo Clay’s “Scott” is convincingly dumb as a box of lust-riddled rocks, yet his limited brainpower sparkles when compared to Jeananne Kelsey’s slutty “Shelley.” Kelsey is a fine dancer, and her choreography for “Do the Necronomicon” really sells Evil Dead’s homage to “The Time Warp.”  Kate Barrett’s mopey “Cheryl” is clearly the intellectual in the group; neither turning her into a zombie nor locking her in the cellar dims her IQ, and Barrett’s physical outbursts, wisecracks, and furious puns provide several of the show’s best moments.

Each of the other three key cast members get at least one great number.  Isabella Steele’s “Annie” completely nails the lead on the exquisitely clumsy “All the Men In My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons,” and Trevor Winder does a shockingly good job singing and dancing his way through the hen-pecked Ed’s “Bit Part Demon.”  Words cannot express my surprised glee at Travis Schlegel’s “Good Old Reliable Jake” – a good ol’ boy taking country music to dizzying heights of absurdity.

The set, special effects, lighting and sound are essential to express the kitschy wit of the show – director/set designer Centers and his crew pull out all the stops with a vibrating floor, demon-possessed props, severed but still-active limbs, misting and spurting blood, and a host of other high and low-tech touches.  A few blood pack problems and some muffled lines make very little difference, given the utter absurdity of the entire production.

Finally, conductor Cory Sweany and his five-person orchestra are beautifully placed upstairs and upstage, where they do full justice to an eclectic score by Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, Melissa Morris and playwright Reinblatt.

The show is clearly not for all audiences, and utterly inappropriate for children, the blood-averse, or people who dislike campy musicals.  However, the rest of the theater-going public should seriously consider spending a few hours at Theatre in the Grove – may I suggest the midnight showing on October 31^st?

Evil Dead: The Musical is playing at Theatre in the Grove, 2028 Pacific Avenue, Forest Grove through November 4th, with performances Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2:30 p.m., and a special midnight Halloween showing on October 31^st.

Twilight Theater Company Plumbs the Depths of Marat Sade

Jennifer Madison Logan, Greg Prosser, and Randy Patterson.
Photo by Alicia Turvin

By Tina Arth

As we trudge, wary but hopeful, toward the 2018 midterm elections, trust our good friends at Twilight to bring us that ever-popular ray of theatrical sunshine, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, familiarly known as

Marat/ Sade. With its impossibly perky subtext: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” (or, if you prefer, the less tasteful “vote out the bastards, vote in the sons of bitches”), Director Dorinda Toner’s massive 24-person cast explodes across the stage, bringing playwright Peter Weiss’ dark 1964 play to life in a grim reminder that even the most enlightened and progressive political revolutions rarely yield lasting positive change, especially for the downtrodden.

For those of you who, like me, might not have a clue what to expect when walking into the theater, here’s some basic intel about stuff we learned in school but may have since filed away under “irrelevant”: the French revolution started in 1789, and initially ran through 1799. The French monarchy was replaced with a shaky and thoroughly bloody republic, there was lots of turmoil, and ultimately the revolutionary hero Napoleon Bonaparte (having conveniently sidelined some of his more liberal republican impulses) took the reins in 1799, created The Consulate, and then in 1804 began a 10-year reign as French emperor. Each step in this complex process was justified, at least in part, by the argument that making France a more liberal country that would bring a better life to the oppressed masses (we all remember Marie Antoinette and “let them eat cake,” right?). While they succeeded in abolishing the monarchy, attempts to create an egalitarian, poverty-free society were notably less successful. All of this info is key because Marat/Sade is a play within a play, ostensibly written by the infamous Marquis de Sade (funny how we all remember him, right?) exploring the 1793 assassination of radical republican Jean-Paul Marat. The only other thing you need to know is that the action takes place in the (insane) Asylum at Charenton, circa 1808 while Sade was an inmate – as part of their therapy, the inmates are performing Sade’s play, with the asylum director and other members of the bourgeoisie as their audience. Oh – and resist the urge to sit in the middle of the second row. Unless you are very, very tall, the seat directly behind Coulmier, the asylum director, yields a limited view of center stage, and things happen there!

Twilight newcomer Randy Patterson (the Marquis de Sade) is one of the few actors portraying himself (as opposed to being a character within the play he has written). He gives the role a controlled menace, with just tiny bursts of mania, and the slightly creepy effect is enhanced by his makeup, strong and expressive features, and daunting physical presence – as his “play’s” director he is mostly silent and still, but always worth watching, and when he does speak everyone listens. Patterson plays primarily off two other key characters, Greg Prosser’s Marat and Stan Yeend’s Coulmier. Yeend clearly has fun, and is fun to watch, being quintessentially bourgeois. He’s well-dressed, full of bluster and condescension, leaping to his feet and loudly objecting with lightning speed each time Sade’s play begins to tread on dangerous turf, and quietly comforting his daughter when the action on stage gets a mite too raucous.  Prosser is tougher to read – although he’s playing a paranoid schizophrenic tormented by chronic skin disease playing a bloodthirsty rebel, he spends almost the entire play seated in a large bathtub wearing only a beige diaper (the role is often played fully nude, but I appreciate Toner’s directorial choice to provide minimal cover).  Because of the tub’s placement  (upstage, and not well lit), the audience does not get close enough to Prosser to really feel his performance – and one of the great strengths of Twilight is the immediacy that comes with audience proximity to the stage.

The vocal ensemble is powerful, and does full justice to Lola Toner’s fine original music. Among the resident lunatics, a few are particularly noteworthy for their ability to commit consistently to their roles, even when they are not the center of attention, in particular Chris Murphy, Samuel Alexander Hawkins, and Tony Domingue. Skye McLaren Walton turns in an unforgettable performance as the incredibly libidinous Duperret, and Eva Andrews is stunningly focused, and totally oblivious to Duperret’s constant rape attempts. Props to almost all of the women for gracefully letting it all hang out during the final orgy, with special recognition to Kaitlynn Baugh for confidently providing a moment of tasteful downstage nudity. Jeff Giberson’s Herald is nicely sardonic, but perhaps a bit too glib to mesh cleanly with the rest of the cast – I found myself wondering whether he was actually present in the asylum or simply a one-man Greek chorus.

Marat Sade is not performed often, and it is rank understatement to say that it’s a challenging show to direct, perform, and watch. I suspect that most audience members walk out (as I did) wondering exactly what they have seen. However, it’s worth the trouble – see it, ponder at length, reflect on the currency of the topics in a world that seems no closer to getting it right than the rebellious French of the time. Do not, however, take your kids along, unless they are at least 18!

Twilight Theater Company’s Marat/Sade is playing at the Performing Arts Theater, 7515 N. Brandon Avenue, Portland through October 28th, with performances at 8 P.M. on Fridays–Saturdays, 8 pm, Sundays, 3 pm & Thursday, October 25, at 8 pm.

Bag&Baggage’s Deathtrap Ushers in the Scary Season

Andrew Beck and Lawrence Siulagi
Photo by Casey Campbell Photography

By Tina Arth

It’s that time of year again – trust Hillsboro’s Bag&Baggage to take their Halloween offering well beyond “Boo!” with playwright Ira Levin’s thriller Deathtrap. Levin made his name with three iconic horror novels – Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys From Brazil before hitting the theatrical jackpot in 1978 with the hugely successful Broadway run of Deathtrap. Forty years later, the play still has the power to make its audience gasp and giggle at Levin’s brilliant marriage of wit and terror, and director Scott Palmer doesn’t miss a trick (or treat).

The show is set in the study of a down-on-his-luck playwright, Sidney Bruhl, in Westport, Connecticut.  The walls are covered with fierce looking weapons, many representative of past successful stage thrillers on which Bruhl’s career and fame are based. Now at the end of a long dry spell, he’s living off his wife Myra’s largesse and has been reduced to teaching dramatic writing to a new generation of aspiring playwrights. Bruhl is reading a manuscript sent to him by one of his students, and is dismayed by the utter perfection of the tyro’s script – so much so that he even jokes about killing the student and claiming the script as his own. Myra proposes a less lethal scheme, where Sidney can offer his services as a (completely unnecessary) script doctor/collaborator and then convince the author, Clifford Anderson, that they have actually co-written the play – thus letting him in for a share of the glory, and more importantly, the gold that is sure to follow the play’s publication. From here, the plot takes off on a series of unexpected twists and murderous turns involving Sidney, Myra, Clifford, Porter Milgrim (Sidney’s lawyer), and the mysterious Helga ten Dorp, a Dutch psychic who lives nearby. Levin’s script is frequently hilarious – self aware and self-deprecating – and there is a strong element of play-within-a-play as the plot develops and we are shown repeatedly that all is not what it seems to be.

Lawrence Siulagi’s sly, dour, and cynical Sidney Bruhl is the play’s centerpiece, and perhaps most completely captures Levin’s actual voice. At every turn, Siulagi manages to convince us that his urbane exterior houses at least one part psychopath, which keeps us on the edge of our seats. Morgan Cox as Myra is proper, cold and rigid (physically and morally), and her occasional overtly theatrical leaps into hysteria mirror the audience’s own reactions at startling turns of events. Most interesting to me was watching Andrew Beck as Clifford. In previous shows Beck has often played the knowing sophisticate, so it was really fun to watch him initially play the part of a likeable dumb Kopf, and even more fun watching his eyes as he gradually and subtly telegraphed his evolution into a significantly more knowing and complex character.

Mandana Khoshnevisan’s outré psychic, Helga, provides a solid dose of comic relief, especially in Act II where she goes over the top, but never out of control, and Eric St. Cyr provides a nice contrast in his button-down, cautiously lawyerly take on Porter Milgrim.

Palmer’s production team is flawless – in particular, Jim Ricks-White’s lighting, Tyler Buswell’s mace, sword, hatchet and handcuff filled scenic design, and the fight choreography by Signe Larsen. I have been promised that the unexpected opening night (fake) blood spatter was a one-time event, so there’s no need to avoid front row seating!

Early in Act I, Bruhl avers that Clifford’s script is “So good that even a gifted director couldn’t hurt it.” This is abundantly true in the case of the current production, and it makes a perfect way to honor and welcome the scariest season of the year.

Bag&Baggage’s Deathtrap is playing at The Vault, 350 E. Main Street, Hillsboro, through October 31, with 7:30 p.m. performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 2:00 p.m. Sunday matinees, and special pre-Halloween shows at 7:30 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday October 29, 30, and 31.

BCT Presents a Lively School House Rock

Brittain Jackson and Michael Cook

By Tina Arth

Beaverton Civic Theatre’s current production is a blast from the past that rings the bells of nostalgia for a generation of adults who grew up in the seventies and early eighties, and the live version offers an abundance of lively music, dance and song to charm today’s kiddos, too. Director Terri Kuechle her amazingly adaptable six-person cast, and music director Sandy Libonati’s pianist and bassist deliver a fast-paced series of 21 songs drawn from the best-loved numbers from the original School House Rock cartoon shorts first offered as part of ABC’s Saturday morning TV lineup in 1973.

The plot (really just a skeleton on which to hang the individual segments) is this: it’s the night before new schoolteacher Tom is scheduled to begin his first day as an elementary school teacher, and his anxiety makes for sleeplessness, bad dreams, and bizarre (but highly educational) fantasies peopled by three women and two men, all of them representing the various voices in his head. Each segment calls for different costuming (lots of hats and other quick-change garments) and represents a specific topic from elementary education – predominantly math, English grammar, biology, astronomy, and social studies. Tom quickly learns that in order to be effective in the classroom, he’ll have to make learning fun and infuse his messages with music and rhythm to engage his young charges and help them retain the material.

As someone who completely missed the Schoolhouse Rock television phenomenon, I had no idea what to expect, and was for the most part pleasantly surprised. The actors were fully committed to their roles (which cannot have been easy in some of the sillier segments), vocal ensemble harmonies were powerful and clean, there was some fine dancing, the musicians did a fantastic job with the upbeat melodies and were well enough modulated that they did not, in general, drown out the vocals – and vocal leads, while not of operatic quality, hit exactly the right note for the show (“Sufferin’ Till Suffrage” does not require Beverly Sills). My principal concern is that two numbers in the second act (“Great American Melting Pot” and “Elbow Room”) are a bit tone-deaf in light of 21^st century sensibilities – reinforcing a Eurocentric narrative that was ubiquitous throughout my childhood, but that has (one hopes) been supplanted by a broader view of how we got to where we are today. When I queried BCT about this, I found (as I suspected) that they are contractually obligated to adhere to the original script, and thus did not have the option of replacing these numbers with less socio-politically fraught songs. I was, however, delighted to learn that the cast and production team had spent considerable time discussing the issue, and would be specifically addressing it in the audience  “Talk Back” offered after the October 7^th show. For adults simply seeing the show for its nostalgia value it’s no big deal, but I hope that parents and others who see Schoolhouse Rock with children take the time to discuss these numbers.

In a strong (and delightfully uninhibited) cast, I was especially impressed with Brittain Jackson’s dancing, and he totally nailed “Just a Bill” (which seemed to be a particular audience favorite from the old days).  Jordan Morris displayed a comic sensibility sometimes missing from professional geoscientists, and his fast-talking “Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla” was a total delight.  Despite some early problems with vocal projection, Jemi Kostiner Mansfield made the most of her fluid body and mobile face and turned in an overall first-rate performance.

Any adult with fond memories of Saturday mornings spent with Schoolhouse Rock will love this show, as will boatloads of young children. With the caveat that the two “problem” numbers be acknowledged and discussed in the appropriate time and place, I can heartily recommend this show to all comers.

Beaverton Civic Theatre’s production of Schoolhouse Rock runs through Saturday, October 13^th at the Beaverton City Library Auditorium, with 7:30 pm shows on Friday and Saturday and 2:00 pm matinees on Sunday.

Broadway Rose’s ExtraOrdinary Days

By Tina Arth

I was utterly unprepared for the impact of Broadway Rose’s production of Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days. What little I knew about the show left me expecting a muddled tale four oddly paired, shallow millennials seeking what passes for meaning in modern-day NYC, punctuated by a series of self-absorbed and often irrelevant songs. Saying my expectations were off the mark would be gross understatement. What I saw was a beautiful, intensely moving (and often hilarious) show as relevant to an aging West Coast hippie chick as it was to the sophisticated big city theater fiends who comprised its early audiences when it made its 2009 New York debut.

In about 90 minutes, the show’s 20 songs tell a story of Warren, Deb, Claire, and Jason – four people searching for meaningful lives and connections while navigating the complex culture of post-911 New York City. Claire and Jason are a couple, but their attempt to co-habit leads to a host of problems as they try to cram their combined physical and emotional baggage into a small apartment. Deb comes from a modest, confining background and has fallen into a graduate program in her search for a larger world, but she’s frantically going through the motions of writing her thesis on Sylvia Plath with no real sense of purpose. Warren is an earnest nebbish – an aspiring artist cat-sitting for his mentor, who is serving a sentence for sharing his philosophy through unauthorized tagging (apparently, one person’s art is another person’s graffiti). The almost invisible Warren, who picks up abandoned junk from city streets while offering his and his mentor’s “art” (a series of sweet, helpful maxims) to the passing horde, finds Deb’s mislaid thesis notes. The two awkwardly connect – he has visions of a platonic Kismet, she’s just annoyed (and stunningly ungrateful!). In one of those miracles that only make sense in musicals, Warren and Deb find common ground, and while they never actually meet Jason and Claire, they end up having a profound effect on their lives. The poignant and beautiful revelations at the end left me, and much of the audience, near (or in) tears – exactly what I wanted, as it lifts the show from rom-com to art.

There is nothing ordinary about Quinlan Fitzgerald (Deb), Seth M. Renne (Warren), Kailey Rhodes (Claire), and Benjamin Tissell (Jason). Ably supported by musical director/pianist Eric Nordin, each actor creates a memorable character, and each is able to take full advantage of several beautiful opportunities to shine. The characters played by the women are initially sufficiently difficult that our sympathies naturally migrate to the men. Fitzgerald’s cynicism and Rhodes’ bursts of anger are unpredictably fierce at times, but as the tale unfolds the two women allow us to empathize with their disaffection. Fitzgerald’s “Beautiful” and Rhodes’ “I’ll Be Here” reveal their evolution, and we ultimately celebrate the insight and healing that they find.  Tissell’s performance is a subtle treat – his vocals evoke the sincerity of a man who has truly found “the one” and doesn’t know how to keep her. Renne is just fabulous – goofy, naïve, persistent, so oblivious to the negativity around him that he is able to transform his little corner of the world.

Director Isaac Lamb has given what could be seen as a “little” show all of the sensitivity and perception needed to present a pointillist tale of how meaning can be found in the seemingly trivial, ordinary events of Ordinary Days.

Ordinary Days is playing at Broadway Rose’s New Stage, 12850 SW Grant Avenue, Tigard through Sunday, October 14^th.

The Outer Space Mikado of Planet Pitiyu Stops By Planet Earth

 Sheryl Wood, Lindsey Lefler, and Mandee Light

By Tina Arth

Light Opera of Portland (LOoP) made a tough decision this year – the local group has performed much of the canon of Gilbert & Sullivan over the past several years, and it was difficult to imagine them slighting the duo’s wildly successful 1885 comic opera The Mikado. However, The Mikado has become controversial in recent years, as the show’s inherent (if unintentional, by standards of the time) racism has been acknowledged by the broader community. The cultural and ethnic insensitivity of the show has been exacerbated by a long history of offensively stereotypical productions – typically including all white casts wearing yellow makeup, long pigtails, even exaggerated eye makeup to simulate “slanted” (Asian-looking) eyes. Like many other modern companies, LOoP has opted to re-set the show far from Japan, and to remove allusions to Japanese culture from the dialogue, music, costuming, and sets. LOoP took it a step further, by removing the story to a different planet. Hence, The Mikado, or the Town of Tipiyu has become The Outer Space Mikado of Planet Pitiyu.

If you are not already a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, do not expect the show to make sense – just read the synopsis below, then sit back and enjoy the witty songs and absurd conundrums that plague the inhabitants of the isolated (and very humid) Pitiyu.  The planet’s feudal structure includes the Emperor, the Lord High Executioner (Co-Co, who has never performed an execution), and the Lord High of Everything Else (Pooh-Bah), plus an assortment of nobles, wards, and attendants. Co-Co is determined to marry one of his young wards, Yum-Yum, but she is enamored of an itinerant musician named Nanky-Pu. Nanky-Pu admits to Yum-Yum that he is actually the Emperor’s son, but fled in disguise rather than marry the enamored, elderly Catischa. Tired of his ineffectual executioner, the Emperor decrees that Co-Co must behead someone within 30 days or be executed himself. Co-Co essays to save his own life and rid himself of a rival by executing Nanky-Pu, but then agrees to allow Yum-Yum and Nanky-Pu to marry and live in connubial bliss for 30 days before the groom is beheaded. Co-Co discovers he is utterly unable to actually kill anyone, so he sends Yum-Yum and Nanky-Pu away and, with the assistance of Pooh-Bah, convinces the Emperor that he has executed Nanky-Pu.  When the Emperor learns that Nanky-Pu is actually his long-lost son, he is enraged, but Co-Co’s life is saved when Nanky-Pu and his bride return, obviously in excellent health. Co-Co reluctantly agrees to marry the now lovelorn Catischa, and the unlikely pair discovers that they have a lot in common.  Everyone is very, very happy, we applaud, and meet the cast in the lobby before wandering over to the ice cream parlor for a little post-theatre indulgence.

The LOoP production is literally littered with high points. The tiny orchestra, under the direction of Dr. Linda Smith, is perfectly suited to the scale and tone of the production. Lucy Tait’s costumes are simply marvelous – bright, colorful, flowing, and awash with extraterrestrial style. The set is studded with wildly alien flower and mushroom shapes, lit to create almost an underwater aura. Leads and chorus members have all mastered the fine art of snapping Spanish fans to accentuate their moods and ward off Pitiyu’s relentless humidity. Both men’s and women’s vocal ensembles are in perfect harmony; when the full company sings the power is stunning.

That said, the show’s real stars are, well, the stars. As Yum-Yum, Lindsey Lefler’s exquisite soprano sets a high bar, but Sheryl Wood and Mandee Light are not far behind.  Tenor Tom Hamann (Nanky-Pu) and baritone Laurence Cox (Pooh-Bah) help to anchor the men’s chorus, and Cox’s unbelievable sneer is a constant delight. The surprise standout for me, however, is Carl Dahlquist (Co-Co) – for both the power of his voice and his amazing comic chops. By Act 2, I was cackling so enthusiastically that I would have been embarrassed had my neighbors not been just as loud.

LOoP’s innovative Mikado is long – almost three hours including intermission – but it never drags, and I was unaware of the passage of time until the final bows. There are only five more opportunities to see this carefully crafted revision that showcases the fabled Gilbert & Sullivan wit while deleting hurtful stereotypes, so I recommend that you work it into your plans for next weekend.

LOoP’s The Outer Space Mikado of Planet Pitiyu is playing at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (September 27-28-29) and 2:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (September 29-30) at the Alpenrose Opera House, 6149 SW Shattuck Road, Portland.

Lakewood Takes a Fresh Look at Pippin

Jessica Tidd, Kelly Sina, Theo Curl, Paul Harestad, Joan Freed, 
Stephanie Heuston, and Dan Murphy

By Tina Arth

Beneath the dazzling costumes, brilliant choreography, and winning pop score in Lakewood Theatre Company’s current production of Pippin lurks an ambitious, rewardingly thought-provoking allegory about nothing less than the meaning of life - and it works! My favorite kind of show is one where I enjoy myself in the moment, but walk out contemplating a rich menu of themes and interpretations; while I saw the show a few times many years ago, Steven Schwartz and Roger Hirson’s 1972 musical play within a play never triggered this reaction in me before. Director Paul Angelo, his production team, and cast captured my attention in the moment and beyond, and it was a revelation to see so much more in the show than I have seen before.

Part of the shift in my attitude comes from a small change added in the late ‘90s, well after the last time I saw the show – what is known (thanks, Google!) as “The Theo Ending.” Without going into detail that might give away too  much, I will just say that this Pippin always ended with a hefty dose of The Wizard of Oz, but now has an added dash of Camelot that was quite unexpected and casts the whole evening in a new light.
The show is a play within a play, where a group of traveling actors (appropriately led by the Leading Actor) presents the tale of Pippin, a son of Charlemagne who has been raised to believe that he is exceptional, and who goes out into the world seeking his glorious destiny. (As I write, yet another revelation – Pippin may have been “born” as a baby boomer, but he is in many ways a millennial!) He tries to find meaning and happiness on the battlefield, through sensual excess, and in the high drama of political intrigue, but all to no avail. The disheartened prince is taken in by Catherine, a widow in need of a man about the place to manage her estate and help raise her son, Theo. Pippin gradually slips into the routine of domestic life, then flees in dismay when he sees how very ordinary his life has become. As the Leading Player loses control of her troupe, the line between play and play-within-a-play gets blurred, giving more power to the allegorical nature of the story.
Jessica Tidd’s long, sinuously flexible body, powerful voice and unshakeable confidence give the Leading Player a captivating mixture of charm and menace that evokes Joel Grey in Cabaret. She is a directorial dominatrix who tolerates no theatrical monkey business  – she snaps like a whip at the least sign of rebellion, using a quick and venomous tongue to keep the rest of the cast in line.
Audience favorite (at least in my row) Dan Murphy as a befuddled and thoroughly cowed Charlemagne is just plain fun, and his jolly delivery of “War is a Science” stands out in a show filled with snappy tunes. And then there’s Stephanie Heuston as Charlemagne’s second wife, Fastrada. Heuston is probably a lovely woman in real life, but on stage she creates the seductive, manipulative stepmother of nightmares, and her “Spread a Little Sunshine” provides another show highlight. With Fastrada as Pippin’s wicked stepmother, of course we get her son Lewis as all three of Cinderella’s stepsisters rolled into one sneering, bullying, singing, dancing package of evil, and Erik Montague plays it to the hilt.
One of the most enduring numbers from Pippin is the snappy pop tune “No Time at All” delivered by Pippin’s grandmother, Berthe (Joan Freed). Freed gives her “Berthe” a feisty, free-spirited buoyance that belies granny stereotypes – when she belts out “it’s time to start living” she clearly reminds us that life ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and even the Leading Player’s taunts cannot quench her spirit.
The two most important roles are the widow Catherine (Kelly Sina) and, of course, Pippin (Paul Harestad). Both actors play it just right – so modest and self-effacing when compared to the razzle-dazzle flamboyance of the rest of the cast that we initially underestimate them, and only gradually realize that they are the real story. Harestad’s performance is perfect – seemingly a bit naïve and self-effacing, he holds back his full power so that his singing and dancing quietly fill the demands of the role. Sina’s performance is subtle, too, but in a more mature way that demands our attention when she is on stage.  Her vocals with Harestad, like “Love Song,” are especially compelling, and I really loved the adult resignation in her delivery of “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man.” Theo Curl (as Theo) captures the essence of a young boy (which, conveniently, he is) – sometimes spoiled, whiny, demanding – a kid you, like Pippin, have to learn to love – but also a kid who earns the significance of “The Theo Ending.”
It’s quite possible to love this show without digging into its gentler themes – the overall production is every bit as extraordinary as the life Pippin thinks he wants. The set is sparse and flexible, just what’s needed for a traveling troupe, but Erin Shannon’s often-acrobatic choreography is over-the-top dazzling, and Pippin offers unquestionably the best dancers I’ve seen in years. Music director Valery Saul’s work with the vocal ensemble does full justice to the rich score, and the orchestra is not only flawless, but also a lot of fun to watch. Finally, Signe Larsen’s makeup design and Melissa Heller’s costumes add immeasurably to the carnival atmosphere that forms this show’s flamboyantly spectacular exoskeleton.
Pippin is playing at the Lake Oswego’s Lakewood Center for the Arts through Sunday, October 14th.