Playing the game

Pippin is a darkly humorous coming of age story. Originally set in a historical world when it was first performed on Broadway winning five Tony awards, this latest version of Pippin is unusual in that it makes extensive use of animated projections.

Directed and choreographed by Mitch Sebastian, the production – which runs at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London until 25 February – features set design, projection content, animations and visual engineering by award-winning production designer Timothy Bird and a 10-strong team from his London-based creative agency, Knifedge.

Tucked away in London’s Southwark, the Factory is a fringe studio theatre, restaurant and gallery. Its new high concept production has updated the story to a contemporary, virtual world, where Pippin’s ‘ticket to an extraordinary life’ is played out as a computer game live on stage.

Although director Mitch Sebastian had incorporated Bob Fosse’s original routines into his production (Fosse directed the original Broadway production), this version of Pippin combines new visual technologies with live performance to bring the show into the 21st century.

“In designing the multimedia content for the production, we’ve drawn inspiration from computer games and films such as Tron,” says Bird who, to achieve the desired results, collaborated closely from the outset with director Sebastian as well as designers Ken Billington (lighting), Jean-Marc Puissant (costume), Gareth Owen (sound), artistic director of the Menier Chocolate Factory, David Babani, and with Pippin’s creator, Stephen Schwartz himself. (Schwartz wrote the hit musical Godspell in 1971; Pippin followed a year later).

“Creativity and technology go hand in hand. We often get approached by productions which have come up with a design concept and want to add some projection to it. But it’s often not possible to meet their ambition with a level of budget which often has been spent already,” says Bird. “They’ve either built expensive scenery, made hundreds of costumes or hired an enormous cast, or they’re trying to do it in much too small a house and they can’t make enough income back off the tickets.”

Making projection possible
Working with the Factory was different, claims Bird: “We were involved at a very early stage, so were able to get people excited about what would be possible if you fuse physical and virtual design together with a piece that is completely choreographed. This is the great advantage of working with choreographers who understand movement and stage lighting effects to a greater extent than directors who come from a more literary tradition. For me the use of moving image in a live context has to be done with a choreographic sympathy. This is where the technical and creative happen together.”

Knifedge used five Panasonic 6k projectors and two DL Moving Head projectors (supplied by XL Video) to throw its creations on to a simple, apparently concrete set.  The video content was supplied by two Catalyst media servers and controlled by a grandMA lighting desk.  Clever use of blinding light, permeable set walls, hidden access points and 3D animations of the actors create stunning special effects, with players seeming to appear magically on stage.

Knifedge’s Bird has previously worked with the Menier Chocolate Factory as projection designer for the critically-acclaimed Sunday in the Park with George, which won multiple awards for Best Design, awarded jointly to Bird and to set and costume designer David Farley.

“The Factory aims to be very ambitious and maintains production values of the highest quality while not in many ways having the kind of budgets one might expect to support this quality of work,” says Bird. “It not only provided an opportunity for risk taking, but the producer was quite sensible in the way he budgeted for projection in a small space.”

Knifedge has also worked on a range of projection design projects recently including Snow Patrol’s performance for the BBC’s Children in Need Rocks concert in Manchester, a 10-month tour for American singer-songwriter Josh Groban, and animated projections for West End show Backbeat (see AV Jan p5), the story of the birth of the Beatles.

“We’ve tried to create powerful media content that makes audiences stop and go ‘wow’. Content which goes way beyond people’s expectations, touches them emotionally and prompts powerful reactions,” says Bird.

The production
With Pippin there’s no doubt you’re straight into the storytelling environment before you realise it. Walking the walk towards the auditorium through a narrow atmospheric corridor is an experience in itself. The audience passes through a gloomy bedsit, with computer games and magazines strewn across the floor and sci-fi film posters covering the walls. We walk pass a young man staring blankly into a computer screen and playing with a lighter.

It doesn’t seem quite real. Then again, Pippin is set mainly in a virtual world, the Leading Player and his troupe of actors all players in a role-playing type game, compelling the main player, Pippin – a young man who’s trying to find himself, into a world where he has to complete level after level, learning lessons about life, love, war and gaining much needed experience.

“Schwartz had been interested in the notion of exploring the world of the internet, computer gaming and the impact this was having on young lives. The challenge was how to represent a computer game on stage,” says Bird. “In place of the original wandering minstrels operating in a medieval world, we now have a band of players who meet online to draw people into their sinister cult. We’ve taken what were originally a set of chapters and translated these into levels. With the design we’ve created you enter an arena space where you experience the live version of something that’s being played online.”

The role of projection
According to Bird, for a show to have a large quantity of projection technology, it’s either investing a lot of money or spending a lot of money per week hiring it.

“Producers generally take a sharp intake of breath when they see the running costs, and the costs for the expert people required to make it all work.

“But things have shifted in the last few years. There was a point at which it was completely unaffordable. It’s now affordable if you build it in from the start. Such an integrated approach is always preferable because it means there are fewer surprises. You get much closer to achieving your goals that you would otherwise,” he says.”