Belfast Maskers’ summer musical “Pippin” is a rip-roaring production with a finely tuned and talented cast that fills the Basil Burwell Community Theater with joy, laughter and acrobatics. It is a triumph for director Erik Perkins with almost no flaws.
Pippin (Tom Lott), the son of the emperor Charlemagne (Bob Smith), is seeking fulfillment. The play is set in the eighth century but that’s where historical accuracy ends as Pippin actually died three years before his father.
“That setting is the starting point for a fable told by a troupe of enigmatic performers who invite us to question not only Pippin’s choices, but our own expectations of success, happiness, and the stories we tell ourselves,” Perkins wrote in the program notes.
With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Roger O. Hirson, “Pippin” premiered on Broadway in 1972 and ran for nearly six years. It closed after 1,944 performances and was revived successfully in 2013.
Perkins uses all of the Maskers’ stage to great effect and keeps the show moving. Bob Fosse choreographed the original Broadway show so there was a lot of dancing. These actors aren’t great dancers but boy can they move and that movement looks great.
The musical opens with the Leading Player of the troupe (Abby Boucher, who also choreographed the musical) inviting the audience to watch their show at Charlemagne’s court. Pippin, his father, his half-brother Lewis (Grayson Koelbl) and his stepmother Fastrada (Maggie Machaiek) discuss preparations for war.
Boucher’s Leading Player is an adroit ringmaster, narrating and manipulating the action. She is wonderfully entertaining and amusing, especially when the characters resist her direction. Boucher also is very good at interacting with the audience.
As Pippin, Lott is a bundle of youthful anxiety, curiosity and uncertainty. He wants the adventure of war until he goes to battle. He wants to be king until he’s burdened with the responsibilities. The actor captures all of Pippin’s contradictions with style and grace while always letting the audience know that no matter what happens, his heart is in the right place even when he’s not sure where he’s going until he meets the widow Catherine (Linnea Harold) and her son Theo (Reid Woodbury II).
Koelbl and Palmer are delightfully smarmy and funny while Harold and Woodbury are genuinely sincere. They are the yang and yin in Pippin’s journey. The supporting cast helps create a tight ensemble in which there are no subpar performances.
But the real star of this show is the mesmerising Malaya Moores, who is an accomplished acrobat. He twists and twirls up and down swaths of fabric hung from the ceiling above the stage and effortlessly performs handstands and backflips. Moores gave an emotionally raw performance last year in “If a Tree Falls,” an original musical written by area high school students. He is absolutely mesmerizing above and on the stage.
The “Pippin” musicians — David Delano and PIerce Courtney on keyboards, Dominic Williams on bass guitar and Ty Knappe on drums — occasionally overpower the performers, some of whom need to enunciate more clearly to be understood. On the whole, the band perfectly captures the 1970s pop style of the music.
The production of “Pippin” is probably the best musical the Belfast Maskers has launched since moving into the former Unitarian Universalist Church in 2018. While Pippin’s youthful quest for self-fulfillment might be irritating for adults over 50, the joy the cast, crew and musicians pour over the audience deserves to be celebrated.
The Belfast Maskers’ production of the musical “Pippin” will be performed at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Basil Burwell Community Theater, 17 Court St. For more information, visit belfastmaskers.com.
Correction: A previous version of this review misidentified the role of Pippin’s stepmother. She is Fastrada, portrayed by Maggie Machaiek.