Arts & Society

Gary Tischler • December 29, 2014

“Pippin,” the revival of the 1972 Bob Fosse-shaped musical, which roared into town at the National Theatre, is part big, splashy Broadway musical, part Cirque de Soleil on steroids. It runs through Jan. 4.

Tony Award winner Diane Paulus (she revived “Hair” on Broadway) has injected the original, which featured some of Bob Fosse’s best signature work, and the music and lyrics of Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz, with the atmospherics and spectacle of a 21st-century circus full of buff acrobats flying through the air, doing impossible things, and a cast that follows them gleefully. Nobody is shot out of a cannon, but they sure have a buzz and energy that looks as if they have.

Yet the show has Fosse’s fingerprints all over it, because the production, which is a non-stop, galloping entertainment for the most part, is, beginning-to-end a show about show biz where Fosse, not Charlemagne, was king.

Ostensibly, “Pippin” is still the same old story, in which the young prince Pippin (an appealing Kyle Dean Massey), the son of Charlemagne (the uneducated, powerful king who brought France out of the Dark Ages) tries to figure out what to do with his life. A studious kid with no flair for hacking and hewing, he feels destined to do something great, something meaningful, something important. Will he be a warrior? A man of the cloth? A regular guy? An artist? A philosopher king?

His father is played by a big-white-haired, irascible, kinetic and energetic John Rubinstein, who was the original Pippin in the 1972 Broadway version, thus getting to play his own father, and he makes the most of it.

Pippin’s guide through the process is a show biz type, in leather and black and straw hat, a person called the Leading Player (Ben Vereen was the original), this time performed by Sasha Allen in a knife-edgy, sexy way, who is all slick leg work, finger-spread in the classic show biz manner. She is a director, promoter, organizer and very cool dancer. In short, she’s a Fosse stand-in and stand out.

During the course of the show, through song, dance and acrobatics of the highest (way up high) order, Pippin, goes through home, glory, the flesh, revolution, politics, encouragement, and ordinary life, framed by the opening and the finale, just like the rest of us.

Here’s the twist, and it is pretty spectacular. Pippin doesn’t seem to realize that he’s joined the circus. If “The Lion King” is about the “Circle of Life,” well, Pippin is about the circus of life.

Stephen Schwartz, who gave us the sweet gospel of “Godspell,” gives us here some of the same musical stew—anthem: “Glory,” an up-with-life: “Spread a Little Sunshine” and assorted songs that give us hints about what life’s all about. Those include an inevitable love song, entitled “Love Song.”

Paulus’s “Pippin” isn’t so much about the music, which resonates in the moment, as it is about show time. It’s the circus and the circus guys and girls who flavor this show doing impossible acts of balance and imbalance, tumbling, curling, acts of magic and strength and twists and bends that are awe-inspiring. It’s all the work of Gypsy Snider of the Montreal circus company “Les 7 doigs de la main” or, simply put, “7 Fingers.”

They rob you blind—you can’t believe your eyes, and yet, there you are. All of the company, at some point or another, get involved in this including the glorious undefeatable Lucie Arnaz as Pippin’s hot grandmother Berthe, doing some truly death-defying things way up high. At this pace, it’s a wonder if the cast will survive its stay in Washington.

Circus and all, this is still Fosse’s show—it’s come straight out of the carny midway, the ragged burlesque show, the vaudeville bill, the song-and-dance and chorus line of the American musical, where Fosse made his bones, changing the genre in his image. Think “Cabaret.” Think “Chicago” and “Sweet Charity” and “All That Jazz” with a Miller Lite fizz to it. Every move by Allen, the girls, the leaps and jumps, the sexy “flesh” scenes, the hands, the moves, low to the ground or high in the air are like a love song to Fosse.

All of it is tremendously entertaining, involving at a level where sensation lies, but the heart can hardly keep up. In the end, Pippin meets his soulmate, a widow with an estate, a son with a duck and serfs. She’s lovely as played by Kristine Reese, insistent, golden-voiced, pushy and sweet.

If that’s not enough, there’s even—briefly—a dog, very cute, perfect for our pet-obsessed age.

And the grand finale. Oh, don’t you worry about that. It may even surprise you, and amaze you and leave you satisfied.

(By the way, it’s always hard to top Fosse—for his own grand finale, on the occasion of the revival of “Sweet Charity” right here in Washington at the National Theater, Fosse, accompanied by his first wife, Gwen Verdon, managed to have a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk on his way to the premiere in 1987 . . . That’s show biz.)

Mary Bird • December 23, 2014

The Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary of Washington, D.C., held its annual Christmas luncheon at Columbia Country Club Dec. 3. The festive occasion was capped by the presentation of a check for $224,440 to Associate Area Commander Major Jacqulyn Reckline, who said, “The light of your friendship is shining brightly in this place.” Reckline brought her mother’s Salvation Army bonnet as a symbol of service and steady hope and presented a miniature 14-carat gold Army bonnet to Auxiliary President Debra Push and Vice President Susan Hayes-Long. Beauty consultant Emily Katz spoke on aging with grace.
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Mary Bird •

Men’s Camerata president and founder Brad Spencer hosted the Camerata’s 30th anniversary season at his home Dec. 1. The group seeks to perform, promote and preserve the rich legacy of men’s choral music through a variety of initiatives. The past season was highlighted by three performances with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall of the rare Piano Concerto by Ferrucio Busoni, one of the largest works ever written in this genre in which a men’s chorus sings in the final movement.
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Mary Bird •

The Choral Arts Society of Washington’s 34th Annual Holiday Concert & Gala at the Kennedy Center Dec. 15 was, to quote artistic director Scott Tucker, “a rich and varied treat.” This year’s embassy sponsor was Argentina and Ambassador Cecilia Nahón’s country’s music was presented by the Pan American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sergio Alessando Bušje. A special highlight was the appearance of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, whose guitar renditions of traditional carols were stunning. He capped the concert with a rousing encore of “Jingle Bell Rock,” before the elegant crowd headed to the Roof Terrace for a silent auction, dinner and dancing.
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Georgetowner •

The Fairmont on M Street held its 11th Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony Dec. 3 to benefit the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots Program.  The U.S. Marine Corps Color Guard was in attendance along with Santa Claus, Rudolph, the Georgetown Visitation Madrigals and more than 300 guests. Families enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies, holiday card and tree decorating for children and much photo taking with Santa and Rudolph. Approximately 500 toys were collected at the event for children in and around D.C.  
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Georgetowner •

Private events were held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts before the public Dec. 5 opening of the museum’s groundbreaking exhibition “Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea,” which explores images of the Virgin Mary by renowned Renaissance and Baroque artists. Many of the works have never been on view in the United States. Exhibition co-chairs Enrique and Alejandra Segura hosted a seated dinner Dec. 3 for major supporters of the exhibition and the museum. The program included a blessing by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, a special papal message from Pope Francis and a performance of Bach-Gounod’s “Ave Maria” by soprano Fabiana Bravo. Design Cuisine catered a larger buffet dinner reception the following evening.
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Peter Murray • December 19, 2014

Pop music’s biggest rising star Sam Smith just released a soothing, soulful version of the Christmas classic, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” backed only by a piano. This is Smith’s first endeavor into the Christmas canon, but he is no stranger to covers. Last year, Smith released renditions of songs by Whitney Houston, the Arctic Monkeys, Tracy Chapman and Bruno Mars. There’s no word on whether Smith plans on releasing any other Christmas tunes this season, but with pop rivals like Ariana Grande deep in the game, it wouldn’t be surprising if the British singer-songwriter released a full Christmas album sometime in the future. For now, we can enjoy this rendition as we get closer and closer to Christmas.

Gary Tischler •

As with many things in theater, but surely for sure with Shakespeare, you realize that most plays are never really finished. A production may end, but the play never does. At best, it sleeps,waiting for another gentleman caller, another audience, another hardy company to make it come to life again, as if by magic.

These thoughts seem pertinent, when confronting another production of “The Tempest,” the Bard’s presumed last play (discounting whatever he had to do with “Henry VIII”), a play many consider a valediction, a summing up, a goodbye to the stage.

It may indeed be just such a thing, but it is quite a bit more, a play every bit as layered and intertwined like a spool of rich thread with themes as “Lear” or “Hamlet”, although not nearly as tragic as all that. It’s more like a well full of wishes, incantations and complications—every time you thrown down the bucket, something different comes up with the water.

Director Ethan McSweeny manages to pull quite a bit of the play’s rich diversity together in his bewitchingly engaging production now at the Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Sidney Harman Hall. He seems at one with the central character of Prospero, a much wronged duke and self-taught, powerful wizard holding sway over a barren island, in the sense that there’s a feeling of enchantment and spells over this production.

This “Tempest” is a potent brew that is both hypnotic and fragile. You feel sometimes, against all rational will, that if you turned around or closed your eyes for a few seconds, that the world created on stage could all disappear in a flash—the duke, the lords, Ariel and Caliban, the lovers, the fools, the sweet old man, the island, this rough magic. Of course, like all plays, it does exactly that in the end, but it lingers, too, more than most.

This “Tempest” in the end is why we go to the theatre—and particularly why we return to Shakespeare—time and again, and he to us. The work, this play, the canon, are the gifts the Bard’s final present to us, and his own farewell that keeps on giving, and McSweeny and the cast and designers have wrapped it up on ribbons that seem musical and timeless.

Prospero is the ousted Duke of Milan, betrayed by his brother, left after a storm on an island with his daughter Miranda, an island inhabited by the sprite Ariel and the self-described monster Caliban, whom he subdues to his will. Years have passed, and now a ship bearing his brother, his accomplice the King of Naples and his son Ferdinand and Prospero’s old retainer Gonzalo is driven to shipwreck by a mighty tempest conjured by Prospero, bringing his old enemies to him for: revenge, you might think. You might think again that Shakespeare stopped of being so literal, excluding the gaudy grand guignol of “Titus Andronicus” early on.

Prospero wants a conclusion to the things that changed his life. He wants an ending for himself and his foes and his magic, a future for his daughter—and a few other things. He wants solace and meaning and if that sounds too philosophical for today’s audiences, not to worry. McSweeny knows how to tell a story on stage that is crystal-clear in its language, powerful in its focus, and beautiful to look at, paced like scenes from a particularly swift movie.

The entire production—at just a little over two hours—move swiftly, like a loud poem, colorful, from scene to scene, which is something that rarely happens with this play. It’s a play full of distractions and traps, as well as the potential for glory and disaster, both.

Here’s what happens to it and in it: you laugh, you are amazed and awed, you’re dazzled, you come close to tears, as you should, you wiggle a little like a worm because not all of what Prospero does easy to digest. But here we are with no easy answers, but lots of delight.

The Welsh actor Geraynt Wyn Davies, who swashbuckled as Cyrano de Bergerac here several seasons ago, takes command of the production, but he is not just stern and powerful but a wiser and wizened wizard. There’s a storehouse of warmth in him that splashes over the potential bitterness. He is not blameless—here is Ariel, the sprite that makes his magic happen, but is also a slave in his service, as is Caliban a slave. Ariel reminds him that he promised her freedom—this spirit, played with great appeal by Sofia Jean Gomez, flies, but she’s also visibly tethered not just to earth but to Prospero. Caliban, the violent offspring of a dreaded witch who once ruled the island, sees himself a monster and acts accordingly, hitching himself to the show’s clowns, Trincolo and Stephano in a plot to murder Prospero, a plot that’s thwarted by many bottles of wine.

The wayward dukes are also plotting against each other, without knowing of Prospero’s presence. Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples, is lost to them, but meets Miranda, the awe-struck, love-struck daughter of Prospero, played with verve and the kind of frisky, smart sexiness that is all the more appealing for being totally spontaneous. Through it all, actor Ted van Griethuysen, as the stalwart, kind and steady retainer, is a wonder. We have seen him it seems through his whole life, marching through it with his roles.

What Prospero is after is righting things, then forgiving the crimes, including his own. As a kind of pre-wedding gift, he stages a gift of a party for the lovers which comes in the form of spirits played by puppets, becoming larger and more massive with each appearance. It is stagecraft and Prospero’s bit of magic.

“The Tempest” is also about the stage—about stagecraft and theater life—for what is a playwright but a magician who creates whole worlds out of nothing but words, beautiful words. His last act is to give it all up to us, and let us give him his last reward: “For we are such stuff as dreams, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

Like a dream, “The Tempest” drifts away from us, as all plays do. And it lingers, as the best plays do, as if we not only experienced it in the here and now gone, but as a dream we dreamed before and will hoard for the future.

“The Tempest” runs at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall through Jan. 11.

Gary Tischler •

John Rubinstein is back in Washington, D.C., where everything started.

“It feels very Freudian, certainly,” he said in a phone interview. “I mean, here I am, playing the father of a character whom I originated back in 1972.”

Rubinstein has returned to Washington in the Tony Award-winning revival of “Pippin,” an all-new production of Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz’s 1972 musical, directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus with choreography by Chet Walker in the style of Bob Fosse. The show opened here this week at the National Theatre and will run through Jan. 4.

Kyle Dean Massey stars in the title role, with Lucie Arnaz as Berthe and Rubinstein as Charles (as in Charlemagne), Pippin’s father.

In 1972, a young Rubinstein had garnered his first major Broadway role at the tender age of 25.

“It was a little frightening, sure it was,” Rubinstein said. “I mean, here I was, my first show, I was 25 and a lot was riding on me. And there were all these big names involved. Stephen Schwartz [of “Godspell” fame] and Bob Fosse, who was already a legend. Early on, I was sent to see him. I had some qualms about the show, to be honest. I didn’t know if it would work. But he was very generous, very kind and a tremendously gifted, brilliant man, an imaginative man, with a very tough, pragmatic side.”

“Pippin” had its out-of-town, pre-Broadway tryout at the Kennedy Center before becoming a long-running hit. It won five Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards and ran for nearly 2,000 performances.

The current revival, which opened at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., in 2012, went to Broadway and won four 2013 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Director of a Musical.

Rubinstein remembers being here in the halcyon days of 1972. “You couldn’t help but be aware of what was going on – Watergate and everything surrounding it, the political atmosphere. It was exciting to be here.”

The show tells the tale of a young prince trying to become a man in the shadow of a powerful father. Although it features real people from the Middle Ages – Charlemagne and his son Pippin – it tells the tale by way of a carnival-circus atmosphere, with such songs as “Magic to Do,” “Glory,” “No Time at All” and “Morning Glow.”

Online you can find a picture of Rubinstein and a very young co-star, the late Jill Clayburgh. Rubinstein sports a boyish face and a big mop of curly hair.

“A lot has happened since then,” he said. He may never have quite made such a splash as he did with the original “Pippin,” but he got busy and forged a true career. He has been a professional actor for 50 years, though you may as well call him a Renaissance man: actor, writer, composer, singer, director, teacher.

Talking to him in Los Angeles, you see he did something else too: he forged a rich life. You can hear the sound of children.
“I’ve got five,” he said. “Four sons and a daughter. The youngest is eight. That’s Max you’re hearing in the background.”
“The thing is you work, all of the time, and you learn all of the time,” he said. Eight years after “Pippin” opened, he won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and a Drama-Logue Award for “Children of a Lesser God.”

He was on the long-running television series “Family,” and he’s done numerous roles on television, as well as in films including “Mercy,” “Red Dragon” and “21 Grams,” among others. He’s composed, orchestrated and conducted the musical scores for five films, including “Jeremiah Johnson” and “The Candidate.”

The list is kind of exhausting, when you look at it. “I’m 67,” he said. “Teaching and learning, acting, doing what I love.”
Now he’s playing the father to the son he once portrayed. In real life, he’s a father, but always a son. His father was the renowned classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who died in 1982. (This may help account for his gift for composing music.)
“I think about him a lot,” he said. “Every day, every day.”

Richard Selden • December 17, 2014

Virgin Most Prudent, Mirror of Justice, Ark of the Covenant, Queen of the Confessors. These are a few of the 50 titles of Mary in the Litany of Loreto, stenciled on a wall in the exhibition “Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea.”

One of the most ambitious projects in the 27-year history of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, “Picturing Mary” arranges in six thematic sections more than 60 paintings, sculptures and works in other media. Curated by Monsignor Timothy Verdon, director of Florence’s Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, the show is on view through April 12.

It is largely an Old Masters show, with household names such as Botticelli (the captivating “Madonna of the Book”), Dürer (six etchings), Michelangelo (two drawings, one arriving in late January) and Rembrandt (an etching).

Perhaps the most compelling work by a famous artist is Caravaggio’s “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” of 1594-96, from the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome. A big, beautiful puzzle of a painting, it depicts, on its right half, Mary cradling baby Jesus in an arcadian setting and, on its left half, St. Joseph and a brown ox in a barren clearing. Dividing the canvas nearly from top to bottom is a mostly naked angel, back and wings to the viewer, playing a Marian motet on the violin from music that Joseph holds up, every note clearly shown.

This being the National Museum of Women in the Arts, there are works by four women artists: Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532-1625), Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656), Orsola Maddalena Caccia (1596-1676) and Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665).

The museum has exhibited Anguissola’s “Self-Portrait at the Easel” of 1556, from Lancut Castle in Poland, once before, but it is an ideal choice for this show, with the artist gazing out as she finishes a painting of Mary nose-to-nose with a young, standing Jesus, Mary’s fingers tenderly touching his cheek and the back of his blond-haired head.

Six paintings by Caccia, an Ursuline nun from Moncalvo (about 30 miles east of Turin) whose father Guglielmo was a painter, are displayed, three of them nine feet in height. The first the visitor encounters, “St. Luke the Evangelist in the Studio” of c. 1625, is probably the finest and most interesting. Modeled on her father, the Evangelist – said to have been an icon painter – is shown working on a sculpture of the Madonna and Child, a painting of them on an easel nearby. The complex composition also includes putti, books, a high window, an ox (Luke’s symbol), a little dog and roses (the symbol of the Virgin) on the floor.

In the gallery titled Mother of the Crucified is a passage from the Gospel of Luke in which Simeon tells Mary that “a sword will pierce your own soul too.” The stenciled excerpt is between a polychromed terracotta, “Madonna and Child” of c. 1430 by Luca della Robbia, and a stained-glass window, “Deposition and Entombment” of 1526 by Guillaume de Marcillat. In the two works, a resigned woman stares out or away, not at her son.