#And just when you think you've hit rock bottom et cetera et cetera

[juergenklopp]

PUPPET live at Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO (November 12, 2022) — for @outofbodyinjury

[fourteenacross]

okay so now that you've seen all of them and hashtag love them all, what is your Official Ranking of the pierres?

OKAY, ANON I spent a longer time on this then I probably should have and I’m kind of embarrassed about how short it is after all the time I spent thinking about it.

The problem with loving all Pierres is that it’s hard to decide how and why to elevate a certain performance above another. There is SO MUCH going on in this show and with this character in particular that there are a million ways for an actor to shine or to give a particular interpretation that knocks my socks off. So, here is my scientific analysis* of all the Pierres I’ve seen, complete with conclusions.

*Not actually very scientific

HASHTAG I LOVE ALL PIERRES, THE NUMBERS

Scott x2Groban x1Malloy x1Oak x1

HASHTAG I LOVE ALL PIERRES, THE OVERVIEW

My slide into loving Pierre was slow and steady, not as immediate as with some of the other characters. My first love (and still my fave) when walking out of the show the first time was Sonya. The second time, Natasha had my heart, and Dolokhov stole it right after through a talkback we saw with Nick Choksi. I liked Pierre at the start, I liked his arc, but it wasn’t until I fought with some rando on tumblr about how gr8 Pierre is that I began to realize how resonant parts of his arc were. Spending time listening to the words on the cast recording and reading the lyrics and thinking about the story started to lodge Pierre into my heart. I think I reblogged the “and this bright star / having traced its parabola” verse like, five times between December 2015 and November 2016 because it was so resonant.

What really sealed it once and for all was seeing the show for the first time on Broadway. Our first seats at the Imperial were right around Pierre’s salon, which gave me a super up-close view of the emotions that Pierre goes through over the course of the show. Obviously, when you’re watching this show you always feel present in the narrative (and I have a whole other post somewhere within me about how the set and theatre decor create this liminal safe space), but sitting that close to Pierre and watching him through portions of the show, I felt extra present in his arc. We were right there for “Pierre” and “The Duel” and “Dust and Ashes” and “Pierre and Natasha” and “The Great Comet of 1812,” watching him have these tiny revelations that build up into a larger revelation. It was lovely, and anyone who says “Ugh, I can’t believe you would sit on the stage, you miss so much” doesn’t realize how much more you gain from being close enough to touch the characters as they go through these events and deal with the personal ramifications.

So, I liked Pierre right off the bat, I grew ever fonder in the long stretch between ART and Broadway, and I really hit the level of just adoring him after seeing that first Broadway performance.

HASHTAG I LOVE ALL PIERRES, THE PLAYERS

Each of the guys I saw played Pierre in an almost entirely different way than the others, which is one of my favorite things about theatre. I’ve tried to explain to my parents when I was younger and seeing Rent like it was my job and to friends who haven’t had the privilege to experience theatre as a repeat customer how incredibly unique an experience it is. Every actor is going to take something different off the page and thus give something different to the audience. With a show like this, backed by hundreds of pages of background information and years and years of adaptations and such a diverse body of material, that’s especially true. 

eta: I should add, too, that I’ve never discussed acting choices with these gentlemen. This is entirely based on my interpretations of what I saw them doing on stage.

GROBAN: Groban’s Pierre is actively angry. He’s mad at himself for wasting his life and mad at the world for disappointing him. His “Pierre” is almost aggressive in places. And his suicidality in “The Duel” is more of the “FUCK THIS I AM DONE” variety. You get the impression that he wants to shake the world by the shoulders and say, “This is it? This is what we get? This is what’s worth all the suffering and garbage? Fuck you.” His revelation in “Dust and Ashes” is similarly aggressive. He hits this place where he realizes he can’t die yet because there are things in life that he’s missing, things that he’s keeping himself from having and he has to find them and he’s lamenting his own worthlessness while also resolving to move forward, goddammit, if only to spite himself and the world. This attitude reaches its peak in “Pierre and Anatole,” where you really think the dude is gonna beat the shit out of Anatole, and then we slowly get to watch that aggression leave him as that song winds down and he realizes what he’s done and what he’s doing. It continues that was through “Pierre and Andrey” as he sees Andrey’s anger at Natasha, and he perhaps, begins to see how miserable that angry lifestyle as left Andrey, all the while continuing to struggle with the concept of love he began to explore in “Dust and Ashes.” Meeting Natasha at the end opens him to this world of tenderness and innocence and love that he had thought was beyond him. He spends “The Great Comet of 1812” in awe of that revelation.

MALLOY: Dave’s Pierre is more…sad. His “Pierre” is more despair and longing. He’s TIRED. He can’t DO IT anymore, the world is SO MUCH and he’s just DONE. He’s awkward and hunched and he’s given up. I think Dave’s Pierre is maybe the Pierre that I relate to most because he’s depressed in a way that I get depressed, that sort of whole-body listlessness. His arc from “The Duel” to “Dust and Ashes” is straight up giving up in the former and then falling into his desperation in the latter. He’s asking these questions and making these observations about himself because he doesn’t know the answers and he desperately wants to. He starts act two with this new zeal for finding these answers and he just can’t sustain it, even as he’s trying to push through and be this other person. His “what I wouldn’t give to be like him” in “Preparations” reads as a reflection of this new take on life that he was trying to push himself into. He wants to be the person who just takes his lot in life and is able to wring the best out of it, but he’s not. He’s befuddled as the nonsense with Natasha and Anatole plays out and that slides into anger at Anatole for both throwing this opportunity and not even realizing how badly he’s fucked up. The last three songs start with him being depressed and caught up in the middle of this triangle and really despairing that if no one else can can find fulfillment in life–Anatole and Andrey and Natasha–then how can he expect to find it himself, and then having that moment with Natasha, moved by her kindness, struggling to understand her the same way he struggled to understand Andrey, and being so moved his entire perspective changes. He’s also the awkwardest Pierre by far and I love him for that.

SCOTT: Scott’s Pierre is somewhere between Malloy and Groban. He’s more frustrated than angry, but he also has qualities of having given up the way Dave has. He’s looking for answers the same way that Dave is, but it’s less frantic desperation and more exasperated that he’s spent years looking for answers and he’s still back at square one and everyone is enjoying life, but he can’t seem to figure out how to do it. His Act 2 brings this all crashing down as he realizes that all these people who he thinks do have a good life with their act together are just as fucked up as he is, specifically Andrey and Natasha, but also to a lesser degree, Anatole. “Pierre and Natasha” was very fragile and probably the most like Oak’s. He doesn’t quite have Groban or Oak’s charisma and he doesn’t have Dave’s self-deprecation, but he makes up for that in other ways. He nails those two spoken lines with a sort of quiet forthrightness that none of the other Pierres hit in quite the same way, and as he was the first Pierre I saw, he really set the standard and I feel like I compare all the other readings to this one. 

OAK: Oak’s Pierre is sad. He’s on his way to that Malloy-esque despair but hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. Malloy’s sadness is so complete that it’s more like the numbness of depression, whereas Oak’s Pierre is still feeling things sharply and trying to stop himself before he gets that bad, but unsure how to do so. It added a sort of poignancy to “Dust and Ashes” in the opposite way of Malloy’s–Malloy’s “Dust and Ashes” has that poignancy because his Pierre has hit rock bottom and is seeing the light for the first time and just awed by it. Oak’s Pierre is saved from hitting rock bottom by that moment in “Dust and Ashes.” His anger at Anatole is INTENSE, as is his sadness at seeing Andrey throw Natasha aside. His “Pierre and Natasha” has him in over his head and unsure how to proceed. He wasn’t prepared to play this role in people’s lives, especially when he doesn’t even have his own shit together. He’s mired in confusion, so much so that it’s not until the “Pierre grew confused” that it clicks for him that that’s what’s going on. He really wants to connect with Natasha and is honestly upset that he can’t seem to do it. In “The Great Comet of 1812,” he has this slow revelation of what it means to be a person that’s a perfect reflection of that moment in “Dust and Ashes” that he decides to live, so soft and deep in counterpoint to the frenzy of before. 

HASHTAG I LOVE ALL PIERRES, ET CETERA

Malloy wins “No, I am enjoying myself at home this evening” for comic perfection, though Oak is only seconds behind him for the AMAZING awkward grin and thumbs up he gives the audience. 

Oak wins the start of “The Duel” because he imbues his performance with an almost goofy quality that works so well for Pierre just letting himself be free for one moment before it gets spoiled.

Malloy wins “Nothing matters–or everything matters, it all the same.” I’m still thinking about his delivery of this line and how it fits in with his Pierre so well.

Scott wins “Nothing but the candle in the mirror”–Scott’s got a lovely, melodic voice–less intense than Groban’s and less gruff than Dave’s and fuller than Oak’s.

Groban wins the toast in “The Abduction.”

Malloy wins the “Whaaaaaat"s by FAR.

Oak wins “Pierre and Anatole.”

HASHTAG I LOVE ALL PIERRES, THOSE LINES

Guys, I don’t know. All I can tell you is that Groban is out–I was kind of put off by his delivery the first time I saw him but it grew on me over time, listening to the cast recording and boots.

Scott’s set the standard for how I hear it in my head and how I interpret the lines, but Malloy and Oak were both so lovely that I burst into tears listening to them.

This might be a three-way tie.

HASHTAG I LOVE ALL PIERRES, THE CONCLUSION

Having seen the four Pierres from this incarnation of the show, I can tell you definitively that……..I love all Pierres and can’t choose a favorite.

Sorry!

I tried really hard to rank them, but things kept pushing people back up and down the list and it just wasn’t happening. It’s a four-way tie.

I love all Pierres.