Last Chance to see “The Piper” at Harvard (before it goes to Broadway, and it will!)

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Today is the final performance of the workshop version of “The Piper”!  Go if you can.

The musical takes up the legend about the rat-infested village of Hamelin, and the Pied Piper, who rids the town of rats but fails to receive his reward.  With the seductive music of his lute and the beauty of his multi-colored costume, he lures the children of the village to another place, perhaps to their death, perhaps to a better life of music, color, and beauty.  “The Piper” ingeniously stages the story without showing us the horror of the rats and of the lost children.  But it takes us to the heart of the story–fear, betrayal, xenophobia, and unforgiving terror without the consolation of restitution.  The story does not give us the “happily ever after” of most fairy tales, but we take from it a reminder about the beauty of song and Elsewhere and the treachery of valuing affluence over fairness.