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| Orion Griffiths in Pippin - Opening of Act II |
Geoff Edgers
of the Boston Globe has written a
wonderfully insightful feature article about current Pippin cast member, Orion Griffiths. I am pleased to offer the full text below, as
well as a link to the original story that appeared in the May 1 edition of the Boston Globe, just below the fold on the front
page.
Let me add a few additional personal comments to the vivid picture
that Mr. Edgers has painted of Orion. I
have come to know Mr. Griffiths quite well in the past few months. I recall watching him perform with his
siblings in front of Quincy Market. He and I have shared coffee and meals
together on several occasions – both while he was in residence with the Pippin company at the American
Repertory Theater, and since the show has moved to Broadway.
Orion is everything the article indicates – and more. After his sister Vicky’s accident, Orion’s parents
we forced to stop performing to be able to be at their daughter’s bedside as
her life hung in the balance for many months.
Orion, as a 12 year-old, took to the streets to begin performing so that
he might support the entire family. When
you look at his picture, you see physical strength; those of us who have had a
chance to look at the person inside see even more impressive strength of
character.
The feat that he performs to open
Act II of Pippin as “The Rolla Bolla Man”
is an astounding acrobatic achievement.
It is also a metaphor for the many countervailing forces that this young
man has learned to balance in his already storied life.
NEW YORK — It was a chilly night on Broadway when Orion
Venture Maximillian Fitz Griffiths emerged from the stage door of the Music Box
Theatre, shuffled past fans waiting to meet the stars, and began his nightly
walk to his temporary flat.
He wore a T-shirt, no jacket, but the cold didn’t bother
him. It’s no wonder. For his Broadway debut in the musical “Pippin,” Griffiths
wears a skimpy vest and a pair of red leathery shorts that could make a
Chippendales dancer blush.
“I had them put one more seam on the bottom,” the longtime
Boston street performer said, laughing. “Now they don’t ride up my leg so
much.”
Dealing with a Broadway wardrobe is
not the only first for Griffiths, who spent much of his life on the road in his
family’s traveling circus. At 25, he’s finally got a bank account and a place
to stay that isn’t on wheels. Griffiths is one of seven acrobats in the revival
of “Pippin,” which originated this season at the American Repertory Theater in
Cambridge, opened on Broadway last Thursday, and earned an impressive 10 Tony Award nominations on Tuesday,
including one for best revival of a musical. The show has generated
considerable buzz for its cast and its Tony-nominated director, ART artistic
director Diane Paulus. In his review, New York Times critic Ben Brantley called the musical’s acrobats “pretty
astonishing.”
Related
JENNIFER TAYLOR FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
Orion Griffiths, a longtime Boston street performer, is one
of seven acrobats in the revival of “Pippin.”
Many Bostonians would recognize Griffiths. He’s performed to
thousands at Faneuil Hall as part of the Sardine Family Circus. And the ART
sold out the more than six-week run of “Pippin” that ended in January. But for
Griffiths, the show is more than a big break. It’s a complicated break, giving
him a chance to move into the spotlight but forcing him to alter his life. This
is the first time Griffiths has left the family behind. It has also meant
delaying his dream of competing in the world’s premier circus festival in Monte
Carlo.
‘The proudest part
of circus performing is the bow. . . . It’s like the payment. Your
bow is getting paid by the crowd.’
Which is why, when Griffiths was
invited to join “Pippin” without an audition — he’s that good — he, at first, dismissed the idea.
“I’m a circus performer” is how Griffiths remembered
responding at first to the offer.
He eventually changed his mind and joined the production,
which stars Patina Miller, Matthew James Thomas, Terrence Mann, and Charlotte
d’Amboise. Though Griffiths has fewer than a handful of lines, he’s onstage for
much of the two-plus hours of the musical.
Gypsy Snider, the veteran circus director in charge of
“circus creation” for the “Pippin” revival, calls Griffiths her “saving grace.”
“Orion’s kind of a legend in the circus world,” said Snider,
who hired Griffiths for the show last year. “He’s one of those performers who
is so multitalented, who really knows how to sell the merchandise on the stage.
He has a rare and wonderful talent.”
When he talks of the circus life, Griffiths doesn’t mean
Ringling Bros. or Big Apple. His universe is about the smaller troupes that
began emerging in the 1970s: talented, close-knit crews inspired by European
circuses that drew on showmanship and athleticism to capture audiences on
street corners.
Griffiths’s skills perfectly suit “Pippin,” which uses the
circus motif to reshape the Bob Fosse-directed 1970s musical about a young
prince searching for the meaning of life. In the show, even seasoned Broadway
stars have learned to flip, fly on a trapeze, or ride a unicycle. As Pippin’s
grandmother, Andrea Martin has brought down the house by dangling in the air
with a muscled circus performer.
But for those who know him, Griffiths has pulled off the
biggest trick.
For most of his life, home was Holland, Spain, Alabama,
California, England, or just about anywhere the Sardine Family Circus rolled
into town. His parents, John and Pauline, founded the troupe in the mid-1980s.
Typically, they stayed on the road, never in one place for more than three to
six months.
“I climbed on the roof of a train.’’
That’s how older sister Vicky begins the story of the
accident that changed their lives.
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| Griffiths as a child in Amsterdam. For most of his life, home was Holland, Spain, Alabama, California, England, or just about anywhere the Sardine Family Circus rolled into town. |
GRIFFFITHS FAMILY
The Sardine Family Circus was in Austria, performing, when the
the 9-year-old girl decided to play in the old railroad station. It was a snowy
day in October, and she hit a live wire, shot into the air, and had 75 percent
of her body burned. Doctors had to amputate her right arm, and Vicky stayed in
the intensive care unit in a medically induced coma for six months.
Only a few months after she got out of the hospital, John
Griffiths taught his daughter how to ride a unicycle again. Then he heard about
the Shriners Hospitals for Children, where Vicky could get free treatment.
That’s how the family ended up in Massachusetts. To date,
Vicky has had 52 operations, the most recent two months ago. And it was in the
parking lot of the Shriners Hospital for Children in Springfield that Orion
Griffiths met his future wife.
Karly O’Keefe, 12 years old at the time, spotted Orion, then
14, doing handstands from her house, near the parking lot. She came out one day
and did somersaults.
“I remember being admitted and Rion telling me about this
girl he had just met and how pretty she was,” said Vicky, using the family’s
nickname for Griffiths. “Once I was discharged, I met all of the O’Keefe
family. Really awesome people.”
These days, Springfield is the closest thing Griffiths has
to home. Vicky and sister Keleigh, each married, remain there. So does the
O’Keefe family. And it was Karly who urged Griffiths to realize just what the
“Pippin” offer meant when he wavered.
“I thought: Oh my God, this is huge. I don’t know why you’re
looking past this. You need to think about this,” said Karly, who had married
Orion last May. “And he did.”
When he was young, Griffiths remembers, he often looked at
the other kids, with their toys and bedrooms and television sets, and thought,
“Why can’t my life be like this?” The only life he knew was the circus.
“But by the time I’d reached 15,” he said, “I had such an
overpowering love for the life, I couldn’t think of any other way.”
The Griffiths children were all skilled, but it was Orion,
born to British parents in Holland in 1987, who pushed a little harder.
“Anything he ever touched, he had to be perfect,” John
Griffiths said by phone from San Francisco, where he, Pauline, and two of their
children live in the family RVs. “Regardless of what our program was at the
time, he always got up at 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning and worked out for a
couple of hours.”
John Griffiths remembers the boy scrawling a message
wherever he could when he was just 4 or 5.
“On walls, on his schoolbooks, on a foggy window, he’d
write, ‘Rion is the best,’ ” he said.
In those days, the Sardine Family Circus was 10 strong, the
eight children and two parents playing streets, city festivals, and occasional
tent shows. They were never anywhere for long, and while the children didn’t
have much formal schooling, they developed a work ethic and focus beyond their
years. The big change came in the mid-1990s, when Vicky had her accident. Three
siblings headed off on their own. By the time the Sardine Family Circus moved
to Springfield permanently in 2003, the Griffithses were down to five children
in the troupe.
As John and Pauline stepped back from performing, Orion
developed a three-person act with his sister Meisje and brother Alex. In the
show, Meisje, a contortionist, would be largely silent. Alex, a masterful
unicyclist, generally played the clown. Orion served as ringleader, charming
the audience, playfully mocking those not paying proper attention and building
suspense as they worked toward their best tricks.
“He makes a show out of everything and everybody,” said
Paula Davis, a retiree from California who came upon Griffiths performing alone
last summer in San Francisco. “He did tricks, he would tell jokes, and at first
there was hardly anyone there, but he pulled everyone that walked by in with
his sense of humor.”
Griffiths was living in San Francisco with his family last
year when Snider called him.
She had hired six acrobats for “Pippin” and needed one more.
But Snider was having a difficult time. “Finding a big guy who is also a
talented acrobat, who can flip, who can hand-mount, it almost doesn’t exist,”
said Snider.
Her family had founded the Pickle Family Circus back in the
1970s in San Francisco, so Snider began calling people she knew there.
“Instantly, Orion’s name came up,” said Snider. “In fact,
one of the acrobats I had already hired said, ‘Oh my God, I trained with that
guy and he’s amazing.’ ”
When Griffiths told his father about the offer, John got
upset.
“I cannot deny it,” he said. “I hang on to my kids. But when
it became a reality, I did everything I could to help him out. Got him to
airports. Made sure he had money. Not that I was happy about it. The fact of
the matter is this is not the apex of where Rion can go. If he were the star of
the show, I would agree, and Rion is the star of every stage he’s on. That’s where
he belongs.”
The father isn’t the only one torn.
Griffiths misses his family. He also isn’t ready to give up
his street act.
Earlier this year, after “Pippin” wrapped at the ART and
before rehearsals began in New York, he and Karly drove an RV to Florida so he
could play to the crowds in Key West. He plans to find a spot in New York this
summer where he can put on a show.
On the street, he’s reminded of what he misses the most in
“Pippin”: the chance to take a solo bow.
“The proudest part of circus performing is the bow,” said
Griffiths. “You gave something which is something you worked your whole life
on, your act, the crowd accepts it and is now giving it back to you. It’s like
the payment. Your bow is getting paid by the crowd.”
Though he’s getting paid by the Broadway production,
Griffiths isn’t changing the way he operates. He doesn’t drink or smoke, and he
avoids sugar. While some cast members have rented pricey apartments near the
Midtown theater, he and Karly found a place in the Bronx for $1,200 a month.
She works as a nanny for Andrew Cekala, the 12-year-old Weston boy who is in
the cast.
Performing in “Pippin,” Griffiths said, has been
exhilarating. He loves being onstage, and he’s proudest of the moment, right
after intermission, when he shows off his specialty, the rolla bolla. That act
requires him to balance on a narrow board atop stacked, moving cylinders.
It is a highlight of his street show, and it wasn’t
originally in “Pippin.” Then, one day during a rehearsal, Snider asked the
acrobats to demonstrate their chops.
“I said, ‘Orion, just do it like you’re on the street,’ ”
she remembered. “He just entertained the whole cast. People were just laughing
and actually were really touched. It was so endearing. He started talking about
his family and that he would never leave them. And of course, in many ways, he
is leaving his family. But he really needed us to understand that he’s not the
one who deserts people. It was just so moving.”
When he left San Francisco, Griffiths made a promise to
younger sister Meisje. He would one day reunite with his siblings and they
would perform again as the Sardine Family Circus. It is a promise his father
expects him to keep.
“For me, it’s not a hope,” said John Griffiths. “It’s a
question of when. Whether Pauline and I will still be alive to watch it, it
will happen. They’ve got too much power when you put them together.”
bostonglobe.com - From Boston Street Performer to Broadway
Enjoy!
Al
