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SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying

Posted by: Richard Connema 06:06 pm EDT 09/25/14

The National Road show of "Pippin" started last night here in San Francisco and it was an electrifying evening. House was full and their was magic in the air. Following the performance everyone and I mean everyone was on their feet yelling and clapping like crazy. What a show.

Most certainly was different of the original I saw in 1972 at the Imperial Theatre in New York

Full regional review coming up


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re: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying

Posted by: MarkBearSF 02:49 am EDT 09/26/14
In reply to: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying - Richard Connema 06:06 pm EDT 09/25/14

I'll be interested in your opinions of Sasha Allen (Leading Player).

Like you, my previous experience was the original production. I found this version fully satisfying and that the circus staging worked wonderfully. The performances by John Rubenstein and Matthew James Thomas were excellent.

At age 17, I was totally blown away and played the OCR to death for years. However seeing a tour a few years later and then the video, I realized that some of the magic it did involved major slight-of-hand. Watching the dazzling choreography, staging and performances, it was easy to ignore the problems with the book and sorta-message. Swapping a hippie ren fair rucksack for a circus bag-of-tricks, Diane Paulus (and Gypsy Snider - originally of SF's Pickle Family Circus and Mime Troupe) came up with different magic to do. And the slight-of-hand tradeoff still works great.


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re: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying

Posted by: Kimmelhisway 12:50 pm EDT 09/26/14
In reply to: re: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying - MarkBearSF 02:49 am EDT 09/26/14

Bob Fosse's original conception for Pippin was circus - he changed his mind after the initial set of auditions for the show, but the circus take that's so "original" is hardly new to this project - I'll be seeing this version in LA.


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re: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying

Posted by: DistantDrumming 12:01 am EDT 09/26/14
In reply to: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying - Richard Connema 06:06 pm EDT 09/25/14

Nice! I'm looking forward to seeing the tour in LA. And, I'm so happy that we get Matthew James Thomas and Andrea Martin in LA. I believe you got both of them in SF as well, correct?


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re: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying

Posted by: Richard Connema 03:22 am EDT 09/26/14
In reply to: re: SF Last night Opening of "Pippin" was electricfying - DistantDrumming 12:01 am EDT 09/26/14

Matthew is playing Pippin the whole run up here. Lucie Arnez plays Berthe until Oct 9 and Andrea comes in for the final two weeks up here. By the way Lucie was amazing doing acrobatic things that I never thought a 67 year old woman would or could do. All that and singing.


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