Hey guys,
Sorry it's taken so long to report back on Erik Altemus's performance and the rest of Pippin last Sunday. I thought Erik did a great job. He sang Corner of the Sky really well (although I think he cut off the last note earlier than he meant to), and he did a great job in general. I saw the show early in previews, and one big change from Matthew James Thomas is their apparent relative ages.
I have no idea what their actual ages are, but Erik without the mustache looks really, really young. He looks much younger than everyone else on stage besides Theo (which I didn't feel was true with MJT). Erik is also in excellent shape, but he's not as much hard muscle as most of the rest of the cast (again, in contrast to MJT). For me, Erik's Pippin seemed much younger and more innocent, which I think works really well for the character. The only place where I noticed he was a little bit tentative was when he was jumping to and from the poles in Extraordinary (and, since there's no safety net, I'd rather have him be careful than hurt himself). I think both Erik and MJT do a great job.
As for the other players, both Olga Kurmansky and Lolita Costet were out, and Colin Cunliffe was playing Lewis, so there were 3 swings on. The circus tricks were cut back a little -- all of the changes noted by gchris11 earlier in this thread was also missing on Sunday. I was a little disappointed with that, although I don't think I would have noticed if I hadn't seen the show before.
In response to the earlier question, the dog came out (and I think it was the same dog as usual).
Some other changes from the earlier performance: the audience didn't seem to know the show as well -- no anticipatory applause at the top of the show, the sing-along with Andrea Martin seemed pretty tentative (and she did not get a standing o and she also did not get entrance applause). The orchestra did what seemed to be the exact same warmup as on the cast recording, which I don't remember from before.
Also, the first time I saw the show, MJT looked like he could barely hold it together during Andrea Martin's song. He looked like he was going to start laughing for quite a while. I thought that was part of the character (it kind of led into the "That's my grandma!" line, and Andrea Martin seemed to be encouraging it), but Erik didn't do it at all. Has anyone seen MJT do that in performances they have seen?
The other interesting thing that happened was that one of the hula hoops in Simple Joys shot out into the audience and hit the people in the front row. Then about 30 seconds later, the exact same thing happened again! The audience member was not hurt, and both Patina Miller and the ensemble member who bobbled the hoops were very nice about it. Patina went up to the front row and shook hands with the people and asked them if they were okay after the song was over, and I think the ensemble member asked them as well.
Terrence Mann, Charlotte D'Amboise, and Andrea Martin all did not come out the stage door afterwards. At this point, are they still coming out in general?
"What was the name of that cheese that I like?"
"you can't run away forever...but there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start"
"well I hope and I pray, that maybe someday, you'll walk in the room with my heart"
Updated On: 7/13/13 at 03:51 PM