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| Synopsis |
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The play begins with the Leading Player and a troupe of actors inviting the audience to join them in a story about a boy prince (Pippin) searching for fulfillment. Pippin returns home to the castle and estate of Charlemagne (King Charles), his father, from school in Padua. Charles and Pippin don’t get a chance to communicate often, as they are interrupted by nobles, soldiers,and couriers vying for Charles’ attention.
Pippin also meets up with his stepmother, Fastrada, and her dimwitted son, Lewis. Charles and Lewis are planning on going into battle soon, and Pippin begs Charles to take him along so as to prove himself.
Once in battle, the Leading Player re-enters to lead the troupe in a mock battle using top hats, canes and fancy jazz as to glorify warfare and violence. This charade of war does not appeal to Pippin, and the boy flees into the countryside. The Leading Player tells the audience of Pippin’s travel through the country until he stops at his exiled grandmother’s estate. There, Berthe (his grandmother), tells Pippin not to be so serious and to live a little. Pippin takes this advice and decides to search for something more light-hearted. He chooses women to see if they are the answer to life. But when his attraction to women becomes a consuming entity, Pippin begs the Leading Player to halt the troupe and their enticing dances.
The Leading Player then tells Pippin that perhaps he should fight tyranny, and uses Charles as a perfect example of an unenlightened tyrant to fight. Pippin plans a revolution, and Fastrada is delighted to hear that perhaps Charles and Pippin will both perish so that her beloved Lewis can become king.
Fastrada arranges the murder of Charles, and Pippin falls victim to her plot. He kills Charles while praying and becomes the new king. However, after petitions from the masses, Pippin finds himself being just as tyrannical as Charles. He begs the Leading Player to bring his slain father back to life, and the Leading Player does so.
The exiled Pippin then travels and stumbles upon an estate owned by Catherine, a widow, with a small boy, Theo. Pippin thinks himself above such boring manorial duties as sweeping, repairs, and milking cows, but warms up to the lovely Catherine. However, as time goes by, Pippin realizes that he must leave the estate to still find his purpose.
All alone on a stage, Pippin is surrounded by the Leading Player and the various troupe members. They all suggest that Pippin complete the most perfect act ever – the Finale. They tell Pippin to jump into a box of fire, light himself up, and “become one with the flame”. Pippin is reluctant, but agrees that perhaps suicide is the best way to go, but he is stopped by one actress from the troupe – the woman playing Catherine. Catherine and her son stand by Pippin and defy the script, the Leading Player, and Fastrada. The Leading Player gets furious and calls off the show, telling the rest of the troupe to pack up and leave Pippin, Catherine, and her son alone forever, trapped on an empty and dark stage. Pippin realizes that he has given up his extraordinary purpose for the simplest and most ordinary life of all, and is finally a happy man.