Pippin

I went to see Pippin on Broadway last night.  Before I saw the show, I had no idea what Pippin was about and the only thing I really knew about it was that Ben Vereen starred in the show many moons ago. 

The current revival of Pippin was really good.  There were acrobats doing Cirque du Soleil-type moves, there were a lot of Fosse-like dance moves, and the show was quite funny.  But the real star is Patina Miller who plays a kind of MC for the show.  She was excellent.  Her voice was superb and she just brought an elevated level of energy to the show whenever she was on stage.  The same can't be said, however, for the actor who played Pippin.  The actor, Matthew James Thomas, was good, but he wasn't great and he certainly wasn't on the same level of many of the other performers in the cast.  His singing and dancing were adequate, but I kept feeling like I was watching an eager understudy rather than a top-billed performer when he was on stage.  He previously starred in Spider Man:  Turn Off the Dark, so maybe that's why he was less-than-thrilling in Pippin.  The dude just didn't seem to be ready for a "real" Broadway show.  Aside from Matthew's performance, I was a little disappointed with the music also.  There were no memorable songs for me and I certainly wasn't rushing to get the soundtrack after the show as I did with Rent, Chicago, and Fosse.  But my minor quibbles didn't stop me from enjoying the show or from recommending it for others.