It took 42 years, but John Rubinstein’s back in “Pippin” — not as the young striver of the title, naturally, but as Pippin’s father, King Charlemagne.
“It’s a bit surreal hearing all this music again and experiencing the show from a completely different angle,” concedes the Tony winning son of pianist Arthur Rubinstein. “For all these decades, whenever I’ve heard ‘Magic to Do,’ I’ve always felt that surge of nerves and adrenaline, a totally Pavlovian reaction.”
And yes, he adds, “The sounds of this show are embedded in me, having been in it every day for almost 2 ¹/₂ years, during which my first two children were born, one on a Wednesday matinee day.”
You can catch him through Aug. 17 in the Tony winning revival.
Here’s what’s in his library:
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee
This was a book I found in high school as part of my research on the Great Depression. I reread it often. This basically unadorned story, told with such heartbreaking specificity, such poetry and lack of pretension, is one of the great achievements of literature, and the Walker Evans photos are stark and eloquent.
A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
We opened “Pippin” while the Vietnam war was still raging, and the section of this otherwise lighthearted musical devoted to the “glory” of war reverberated profoundly with audiences back then. This book shed the most light on the murky darkness that surrounded, and continues to surround, the rationale and operation of this ghastly piece of our history.
World’s Fair by E.L. Doctorow
When “Ragtime” was first published, I and millions of others felt as if we’d been invited into a magical new world. I’ve had the great good fortune to record many of Doctorow’s works for audiobooks. The most recent one is “World’s Fair,” a memoir within a novel, suffused with insight, humor and sadness, and the conjuring up of history.
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling
This is a children’s book, a small masterpiece. It’s the story of a boy who carves a wooden canoe and sends it down through the melting snow, where it follows streams and rivers down to the Great Lakes and out to sea. I have read it to all five of my children, and I look forward to reading it again to my grandchildren.