Theater review: Playhouse on Park brings its saucy burlesque style to create an erotic, passionate ‘Pippin’

An earthy, energetic “Pippin” at West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park injects a sense of erotic mystery to the 1972 Stephen Schwartz musical that calls to mind some of the theater’s homegrown cabaret revues. The effect is astounding.

You would think King Charlemagne would be the ruling monarch in the magic-to-do musical at the Playhouse through Aug. 21. Turns out it’s Mama D.

Who? Well, Mama D is a fictional character who has overseen dozens of saucy cabaret revues at the playhouse in the last decade or so, from “Mama’s D’s Outrageous Romp” to “Mama’s D’s Hot Summer Nights.” These racy, no-holds-barred, late-night compendiums of songs, dances, dirty jokes and weird tricks may be an acquired taste, definitely not for kids or prudes, but they are also a defining element of the multi-faceted Playhouse on Park.

Darlene Zoller, who plays the lingerie-clad hellion hostess Mama D herself in those coarse cabarets, is both the director and choreographer of this “Pippin.” It’s clearly a passion project. More than passion: lust. As with the many Mama D shows she’s devised, she’s given the musical a wondrous dangerous energy. The show has a loose, risky, playful atmosphere where you honestly believe anything can happen.

Zoller has taken the outre, outrageous, salacious and sardonic styles she’s honed for those cult cabaret events and applied them directly to a tightly scripted history-based musical with songs by “Godspell” and “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz. It’s a match made in a special kind of purgatory.

Zoller knows the wild style she wants for this production, and she knows exactly how to achieve it. There’s a dirty, grubbed scuffed-leather chic to the whole show. The cast achieves a similar scruffiness in its performance. It all creates a crazed yet comfy environment that settles you through its lack of slickness. Then, when a big dance routine, battle or assassination comes along, they hit you that much harder.

“Pippin”'s a special show. Like Schwartz’s breakthrough musical “Godspell,” which premiered in 1971 just a year before “Pippin”, this is a musical fueled by deep spirituality, philosophy and folklore. It’s entertaining and funny, but takes twisted dark turns to make its points about the futility of modern life and the inevitably of the destruction of civilizations.

The title character is the son of the over-achieving ruler and warmonger Charlemagne in 8th century Europe. The musical is the tale of Pippin’s journey to adulthood, filled with quotable pop-philosophical insights such as “Every son is disloyal to his father.”

If you know “Pippin” — especially if you know it from community and college productions and not the shiny, effects-laden Broadway revival of a few years ago — then you know it’s a true ensemble show. The best casts interact easily and casually, getting along as a tight vibrant community not afraid to rub up against each other.

That’s because the show’s two big full-ensemble routines are a war and an orgy.

The war is no less a conflict than The Crusades, and is presented as a deft dark mix of mime and modern dance. The result is miraculously neither pompous nor cloying.

It’s the orgy, however, that crystallizes everything that is right about this “Pippin.” The whole show is about Pippin’s coming of age as a leader and as a thoughtful, well-rounded human being. This scene is about him being introduced to sex. Zoller stages it as a swinging ‘60s go-go dancing fever dream, accented by amusingly abstract (and non-explicit) acts of carnal coupling. The show’s nine-piece orchestra, led by Zoller’s longtime “Mama D” music director Colin Britt, brings a sonic fury to the swirling sinister psychedelia, taking the whole show to a higher level of psychological intensity.

The best thing Zoller’s “Pippin” and her “Mama D’s” follies have in common is a sense of eroticism that isn’t based on old-world ideals and stereotypes. The sensuality is diverse, diffuse, disorienting and genuine. There’s a shadowy mystery to this journey.

Having nailed all the key moments of the first act, the much shorter second act charges through with great confidence. There are a lot of tonal shifts as Pippin seeks to find himself, but the cast has created an unrelenting momentum and they ride it.

There are some unnecessary imbalances, but they’re slight. As the Lead Player — a narrator character who also takes on a lot of pivotal supporting roles in the drama — Thao Nguyen has a slinky, well-heeled charm that evokes the Master of Ceremonies in “Cabaret,” but he also sets the character too far apart from the other actors onstage. Nugyen stands outside the ensemble so prominently that it hurts some moments when he must integrate with them.

As Pippin, who is established as a poor candidate for becoming a soldier or hero, Shannon Chong is every bit as muscular and handsome and fit as the actor (Brad Weatherford) playing his combat-ready dim-bulb of a brother, Lewis. There’s no real physical contrast between the siblings, even though it’s talked about a lot. The two old and wise and silly characters in this multi-generational drama, Pippin’s dad Charlemagne (Gene Choquette) and Pippin’s grandmother Berthe (SuEllen Estey) happily don’t overplay these already over-the-top roles, but they don’t find other ways to distinguish themselves, and Berthe’s big number “No Time at All” gets awfully tedious.

Stand-outs among the ensemble include Ryan Byrne, who is magnetic as a mere background player in the first act even before he takes on a key role of a young boy, Theo, in Act Two. You could say the same of Hartford-based actor Julia Solecki, who is the understudy for Theo and can be inexplicably riveting as a peasant. Dalton Bertolone is a key figure in all the best dance routines. Leyland Cockerl-Patrick brings fresh interpretations to fleeting roles that other performers might never see such potential in. Teagan La’Shay, Rae Janiel, Oleode Oshotse and Stephanie Reuning-Scherer all bring a special heat and energy. There’s no room to single out every member of the 16-strong cast, but the biggest compliment you can give any of them is that they exist as strong recognizable individuals who can also quick-change into a new role in a nanosecond, then become a group of pastoral villagers, or angry mob of revolutionaries, without anybody grandstanding.

Fans of traditional productions of “Pippin” will likely be disappointed by the lack of magic tricks. Removing the illusions is a bold choice, but in practice it streamlines the show, with fewer distractions.

The raggedy leather and linen costume designs by Vilinda McGregor, which are more underworld than Renaissance Faire, are sumptuous, and the large, powerful band plays with rock/R&B chops.

“Pippin” is a show about a lost soul, yet this rendition knows exactly what it’s doing. “Pippin” rules.

“Pippin” runs through Aug. 21 at Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. $45-$55; $2.50-$52.50 for students, seniors and military. playhouseonpark.org.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.