Pippin Script Analysis

Concepts/Messages:

It is worth the effort required to determine your place in the world.

To truly understand who you are, and how you fit into the world, you have to try out different versions of yourself, regardless of the consequences. This means that sometimes you have to go over to the dark side, to come out a better, more human person.

Humanity is a perpetual conflict between practical life and hopes and imagination. Eventually, these have to be reconciled.

Life is all just a combination of challenges and rewards, like a game show, where you can control your fate but only within the rules of the game.

If you are always looking for things to be better than they are, and abandoning what you have for what you want to have or think you should have – you need to fix things where you are. Or accept them.

Key lines in furthering and explaining the message.

“Journey to a spot exciting, mystic and exotic. Journey – through our anecdotic revue.”

“I promise not to waste my life in commonplace, ordinary pursuits.”

“I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free.”

“Now don’t take life too seriously. Just take things as they come along. Don’t do too much planning, and don’t do too much thinking.”

“Well, here I am to seize my day if someone would just tell me when the hell it is.”

“I’m extraordinary, I need to do extraordinary things.”

“Well, Pippin, I guess you realize what we knew from the beginning . . . that your search for perfection and fulfillment was doomed from the start.”

Character Analysis

Leading Player:

Desire: He wants to corrupt and control Pippin by leading him down the path to destruction. This will prove his overall power over people. He thinks of himself as a master Director.
Will: Strong, but he is arrogant. He presumes he will have success.
Moral Stance: What moral stance? The leading player will say anything, do anything, manipulate anyone and anything to get what he wants.
Decorum: He speaks well, sings wonderfully. He doesn’t particularly care about how he looks, because he has an inner radiance, charisma, and fire.
Summary Adjectives: crafty, cunning, sinister, charismatic
Defining sentence/moment: “I know there are many of you out there . . . extraordinary people . . . exceptional people . . . who would gladly trade your ordinary lives for the opportunity to do one perfect act – our grand finale. Now, if you should decide to do so, we’ll be right there for you . . . waiting . . . anytime you want us. Why, we’re right inside your heads.”
Purpose: The LP is like a ringmaster, a game show host. He wants to entertain, but more importantly, he likes control. Death, humiliation, and discomfort don’t bother him. He wants to be liked, like an actor wants to be liked – narcissistically; and he is always on the lookout for things that will work in his favor. He is, essentially, a satanic figure.

Pippin

Desire: To master life, by living an extraordinary one, to be glorious and triumphant and famous and fantastic. Underlying this, to discover who he is, and how he “fits in.”
Will: Medium. At the beginning of the play, Pippin thinks things are easy, that his intellect and standing will carry him through. However, he is only truly decisive when pushed by others or forced to be by the severity of the circumstances.
Moral Stance: Getting better. He is so self-absorbed that he doesn’t really care about morals. But he has them, and he discovers what he stands for and what he believes in through his experiences. Thus, at the end of the play, he is a caring, sensitive person.
Decorum: Pippin sings and speaks eloquently. His bearing is regal, but he’s also sort of depressed so he doesn’t present himself with pride. He is arrogant, though.
Summary Adjectives: sincere, conflicted, self-important, naïve
Defining sentence/moments: “I promise not to waste my life in commonplace, ordinary pursuits.”

“Why do I feel I don’t fit in everywhere I go?”

“Don’t you see I want my life to be something more than long?”

“You see, I have an overwhelming need to be completely fulfilled. And it’s never ever happened to me so I am in abject despair.”

Purpose: Pippin is, basically, a representative of humans. He undergoes this adventure/experience/process that forces him to try to understand his malaise, and then to come to grip with the result. Everybody has hopes and ideas, realistic or not. Pippin, unlike the rest of us, has the whole world at his disposal. And he tries it all. In understanding why he hasn’t really liked anything he has done in life so far, Pippin is forced to decide what truly satisfies him, and some of this satisfaction is about him understanding what things can be like (potential).

Charlemagne

Desire: To continue being the most powerful person in the world.
Will: Strong, but complacent. Charles is at the top of his game, but he is susceptible to mistakes. Like Fastrada.
Moral Stance: Middling. Charles claims to be a Christian, but he is also a warrior, and has no qualms about massacring, raping, and pillaging the enemy. He is detached and uncompassionate and cares little for anything more than himself. He is also supremely confident. Nothing shakes him.
Decorum: Charles speaks well, dresses, walks, holds himself like a king. He is pompous and aloof to everyone, even the leading player when he plays the role of the king. In fact, he is always playing the role of King.
Summary Adjectives: Regal, dominant, detached, proud
Defining sentence/moment: “You know, sometimes I wonder if the fornicating I’m getting is worth the fornicating I’m getting.”

“Oh, you want your life to have meaning, do you? Well, that’s very ambitious of you, Pippin.”

“For though I cannot write my name

The men whose pens have brought them fame

Write endless paragraphs explaining

My campaigns.”

Purpose: Charlesmagne represents power and war, two extreme representations of the expectations of men in society. He is a sperm donor and killer, but not much of a father or a “feeler.” He is in Pippin’s way, because he feels the need to prove himself to his father, the most powerful man on earth.

Lewis

Desire: To make his mother love him even more by continuing to be the best warrior ever.
Will: Strong. But this is bolstered by his physical prowess and success. He can just beat up or kill things that anger him.
Moral Stance: Not much of one.
Decorum: Lewis is vain and beautiful. He knows he looks good and takes time to cultivate his appearance. He is also stupid, so he doesn’t pay attention to details and anything that requires thinking.
Summary adjectives: aggressive, vain, stupid, simple
Defining sentence/moment: “Addicted to the physical, Lewis loves weight lifting . . . Lewis loves wrestling . . . but most of all . . . Lewis loves Lewis.”
Purpose: To be the opposite of what Pippin is. And to help Pippin on the journey by provoking his jealousy. He’s also merely a comic figure in the play.

The Head

Desire: To die in peace.
Will: Okay. He’s dead.
Moral Stance: A very real and normal person. He just wants things to be okay, house, love, money, food.
Decorum: Used to care, but more interested in the basics of survival.
Summary adjectives: common, good, resigned, powerless

Defining sentence/moment: ”The King has assured us personally. But this waiting around’s got me edgy.”

Purpose: To clarify the pointlessness of war for Pippin (and the audience).

Fastrada

Desire: Fastrada craves power. She must be as powerful as possible. She also thoroughly enjoys getting (through whatever means necessary) other people to things in her favor.
Will: Merciless, she will get what she wants.
Moral Stance: Like the Leading Player, Fastrada does not have morals like we define them. But she probably used to. Fastrada is a psychiatrist’s dream patient – corrupt, emotionally bereft, heartless, and evil. But why?
Decorum: She is quite vain. She wants to be attractive and others’ impressions of her are crucial to her, so she takes great care in presenting herself.
Summary Adjectives: devious, evil, manipulative, dangerous
Defining sentence/moment: “After all, I’m just an ordinary housewife and mother, just like all you housewives and mothers out there.”

“Oh dear. In the hustle an bustle of my lord’s departure I completely forgot to warn him . . .”

Catherine (and Theo)

Desire: To fill the void in her life caused by the absence of company and a man.
Will: Medium to good. The weakness in Catherine’s will is in her lack of directness. She will not say what she wants or needs right up front. She does it passively or in a roundabout way. But she still goes after it.
Moral Stance: Open-minded, but also couched in what her desires are.
Decorum: She takes care of herself, but also doesn’t care enough to go over the top. She revels in her “ordinariness.” Of course, she is genuine and nice and cares about people. And in this show, that is extraordinary.
Summary Adjectives: genuine, caring, practical, accepting
Defining moment/sentence: “I’m your average, ordinary kind of woman . . . you meet . . .at least once or twice every decade or so.”

“I took to bed for five days. On the sixth day I got up. There were things to be done.”

“Wrong. His name’s Otto. You’re not very smart . . .”

Purpose: Huge. Catherine and Theo show Pippin that what he thinks is ordinary can be extraordinary with a little effort and a lot of heart. They are the polar opposite to the LP’s offer of a flaming finale. They offer and support regular old life. Which isn’t that bad.

Berthe

Desire: To help Pippin lighten up a little bit, and enjoy life. And not be such a man.
Will: Really strong. This is one feisty lady.
Moral Stance: Berthe believes in right and wrong, but she is also quite a free-thinker. She wants people to explore the world and enjoy themselves.
Decorum: She is full of life and vigor. The fact that she is old is only cosmetic. She is young at heart.
Summary Adjectives: fiesty, vital, sassy, forthright
Defining sentence/adjective: “Now don’t take life too seriously. Just take things as they come along.”

“Sometimes I think men raise flags when they can’t get anything else up.”

“It’s time to start livin’

Time to take a little from the world we’re given.”

“I believe if I refuse to grow old

I can stay young till I die.”

Purpose: Isn’t it obvious?

Players:

Desire: A good show, and well-executed message.
Will: They have minds of their own, but are really at the whim of the Leading Player.
Moral Stance: The show comes first. And since the Leading Player is fairly morally vacant, so are they.
Decorum: They are actors. Decorum is crucial to them. They speak clearly, stand up tall and proud and look good in their costumes.
Defining moment/sentences: “You will step into that flame, Pippin . . . Become part of that flame . . . Be engulfed by that flame . . . Become flame itself . . . And in that flame you’ll become a glorious synthesis of life and death.”