June theater roundup: Pippin, Suffs, Othello

Pippin 

When I was in high school, the guy I had a crush on--we were in a production of Mame together--told me I should get the cast recording of Pippin when I told him I got a CD player. So naturally I did. I quite enjoyed the music and it wasn't until years later that I learned what the show was about and, indeed, that the songs aren't necessarily what they seem to be. 

Candice Hatakeyama, Cedric Neal, and Emily Steinhardt. Photo by Daniel Rader.

It's a show where a director has a lot of room to play, and Matthew Gardiner at Signature Theatre clearly had a blast with it. Pippin is nominally the story of Charlemagne's son; he's finished college and spends the show trying to figure out who he is--he goes to war, he sleeps around, he's briefly king, he finds a widow with a son and hangs around her farm. It's relatable, other than the Leading Player (it's a play-within-a-play concept) ominously hanging around, sabotaging him, and promising (threatening?) the big finale of the show.

It's a strange show. There's some very cool choreography (the original production was directed by Bob Fosse and you can see his influence in the above picture) and a fun ensemble. 

The cast, of course, is incredible; I don't think I've seen a show at Signature that I haven't thought that. Cedric Neal's Leading Player was the perfect balance of cool and menace; I've only seen Pippin a couple of times before this (and one was more of a concert performance), but I felt scared of the Leading Player more in this performance than I had before. Eric Hissom's Charlemagne is probably my other standout, just due to his reaction faces.

The show lends itself to being weird, and again, that's Signature's wheelhouse. I enjoyed this production, but it's not pulling me to see it again the way that, say, Fiddler did. 

(Also, side note, I can no longer handle "Corner of the Sky" after seeing the complete perfect parody of it in Season 2 of Schmigadoon.) 

Suffs 

Suffs felt like it was written for me--a middle-aged, white, liberal woman. (And indeed, some of the criticism I've seen of the show is like, "It's written for white, middle-aged liberal women," while noting that Hillary Clinton is one of the show's producers.)

The musical is the story of Alice Paul, one of the younger generation of suffragists, pushing back against Carrie Chapman Catt and the old guard who are trying to cajole the nation into giving women the right to vote without antagonizing people too much ("Let mother vote, we raised you after all/Won't you thank the lady you have loved since you were small?/We reared you, cheered you, helped you when you fell/With your blessing, we could help America as well"). She organizes a march on DC, goes on a hunger strike, and helps move the cause forward.

Suffs company. Photo by Joan Marcus.

What I really liked about the show is that it shows that neither Paul nor Catt were wrong in how they approached their activism; the two approaches combined provoked and allowed President Woodrow Wilson (the actual bad guy in the show) to support suffrage. (I read a book about Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in Congress and an activist in the suffrage movement, and this matches what I remember from that book.)

The tension with Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells was also, I thought, well done. There's the echoes of the Catt/Paul tension between generations and the frustration at having to choose between promoting women's rights or promoting Black rights. That Paul and her cohort didn't do enough is brought up repeatedly, particularly at the end in a scene I found fascinating, when a women comes to talk to Paul in the 1970s. Generation after generation, we criticize those who came before us for not doing enough. It makes me think of this exchange in 1776 regarding the inclusion of a passage on slavery in the Declaration of Independence:

John Adams: Mark me, Franklin... if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?

I will say that perhaps the music doesn't quite stick in my head the way music from other shows does, but I am tempted to get the cast recording, because I did enjoy the songs during the show itself and remember thinking that I would enjoy listening to it again. I know a lot of people weren't too moved by the choice for the Tonys performance--"Keep Marching," the finale.

That performance got to me, though, and is only more relevant today. The show's end is something of a hopeful downer--it's all about the need to continue working toward a better future, even knowing that what we might not come and it almost certainly won't come as quickly as we'd like (or need). But it's a call to action and one that's vital in 2025:

Make peace with our incomplete power and use it for good
‘Cause there’s so much to do
The gains will feel small and the losses too large
Keep marching, keep marching
You’ll rarely agree with whoever’s in charge
Keep marching, keep marching
‘Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need
That progress is possible, not guaranteed
It will only be made if we keep marching 

(Also, the original Broadway cast performance is streaming on PBS and YouTube through the end of July.) (And also, you can visit the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in DC, run by the National Park Service!)

Othello

Honestly, when I think of Othello, I always get the Reduced Shakespeare Company's "Othello Rap" stuck in my head ("It was a moan-a/a groan-a/He left her alone-a/He didn't writer a letter and he didn't telephone-a"). 

I kept thinking during the production how it reminded me a bit of Jesus Christ Superstar (and yes, obviously I know Othello came first) in that the antagonist (Iago [Ben Turner]) gets a lot of focus, moreso than the title character. There's debate about Iago's motives for what he does, but the dude really does talk a lot; certainly a lot more than Othello. And if you're lucky enough to sit in one of the seats adjacent to the thrust stage and Ben Turner directs his gaze at you...it's incredibly intimidating.

Olivia Cygan (Desdemona) and Wendell Pierce (Othello). Photo by Teresa Castracane.

Particular to this production was how fun Othello (Wendell Pierce) was (at least early in the play). It makes sense--the guy just got married, even if it was under slightly sus circumstances. But he smiles a lot, he's joking around, bantering with his guys. You could see how Desdemona could fall in love with him.

I also really liked Melanie Field's Emelia (wife of Iago). I don't believe she has actual lines until late in the play (the Othello Rap reports that we meet her in Act Four), but director Simon Godwin has her on stage from the very start of the play. Watching her interact with Iago and Desdemona is something of a gut punch; she clearly is very into her husband and wants to help him, to the point where I was trying to remember how complicit she was in his schemes. 

Again, of course the acting was excellent, but Godwin's staging is overall fantastic. Othello's soldiers are very present throughout the show, and I loved their choreography. I also think I enjoy the relative lack of side plots in the play.