• Courtesy Of Rob Aft
• Rixey Terry (center) in Pippin

Whatever Pippin's professors told him at the University of Padua must have made quite an impact because, when the title character of the popular musical returns home after completing his studies, he's determined to live a life of meaning and consequence. It's a familiar goal of recent grads high on commencement-speech hype. But where to begin?

In the production of Pippin currently running at Weston Theater Company's Walker Farm — its village Playhouse is still under repair from 2023 flood damage — Pippin (Rixey Terry) first looks for glory in the kingdom of his father, Charlemagne (David Bonanno). Lest an iota of medieval historical accuracy be mistakenly attached to this whimsical fiction, Pippin's world has been designed as a dazzling facsimile of an '80s-era disco.

Lengths of tinsel blanket the walls leading into the theater and form the curtain. When the shiny strands part, the audience is immersed in Pippin's quest to find his "corner of the sky," as the show's signature tune puts it — beneath a canopy of mirrored disco balls and colorful mannequin legs. Characters break the fourth wall to address the audience directly and also roam the aisles, intensifying the intimacy of the space, the first couple of rows of which are within a sword's length of the stage.

While Frank J. Oliva's scenic design offers a curious aesthetic for this meandering tale of existential angst — not a sentiment typically associated with disco — the vibe works well to vanquish malaise, like so many Visigoths, creating a vibrant space for captivating song-and-dance numbers.

Felicity Stiverson's innovative choreography and Jessie Lawyer's dance captainship electrify this show with some straight-up disco dancing, including roller disco, that peppers a range of routines as varied as the landscapes on Pippin's episodic journey. The cast's good chemistry, under the direction of Susanna Gellert, comes through in how the performers move together, even when just grooving in the background of someone else's solo. Deep talent pops like Champagne corks behind the velvet ropes of this improbable rural Studio 54 franchise.

The shimmering spectacle launches Pippin on a collision course with destiny. Coached by the Leading Player (Tomias Robinson), a sort-of narrator in the play's quirky framing device, Pippin becomes both an agent of dramatic action and the acted-upon object in others' designs. The Leading Player, for one, already has a finale in mind at the outset of Pippin's adventure.

One effect of the Pippin narrative structure is to accentuate his aimlessness. He gives the soldier's life a shot in his father's realm, despite the king's preference that the learned Pippin leave the fighting to him and his less intellectually adroit stepson, Lewis (Spencer Dean). Nevertheless, the king lets Pippin have a go at battlefield glory. Pippin passes the warrior's test, but his sensitive soul is unappeased. He marches on to other campaigns — in art, revolution and love.

Also Weston's executive artistic director, Gellert has a deft touch that brings out the best in this versatile cast. Terry's Pippin shoulders the story well. He enacts Pippin's haplessness convincingly in the broad-strokes register of musical theater, and his vocal range is as elastic as his body is acrobatic in challenging dance sequences. Pippin's interactions with Charlemagne animate Bonanno's wry turn as a monarch beyond reproach. He wears indifference to his subjects' pleas on his regal sleeve, but his regard for his dreamy son is more nuanced, blending pride, love and disappointment in exchanges punctuated by humorous displays of impatience.

• Courtesy Of Owen Leavey
• Tomias Robinson (center) in Pippin

Alia Munsch's Catherine, who connects with Pippin in the second act as a widow raising a child alone on her estate, awakens a similar dynamic with Pippin. We read in her expression, no less than in her song, a wish that Pippin would get his act together. Munsch may have the strongest singing voice in the cast, a delightful surprise after a first act in which her role is much smaller.

Playing her daughter, Thea, Liv Scott makes the most of her few onstage moments. She's a credible parental burden to Pippin, especially when she won't forgive him his failures. She tightens into a ball of smoldering disapproval, her back to him even when he goes to great lengths to please her. Spoiler alert: He offers her a cuddly, live bunny.

Other characters challenge Pippin to stay the course, chief among them Robinson as the Leading Player. He's a commanding presence over Pippin's progress. He sings and dances with an arresting, casual confidence, and his mood swings add enough volatility to compel attention every instant he's onstage.

As Pippin's stepmother, Fastrada, Courtney Arango plays the devious diva with disarming charm, working her feminine wiles to disrupt the royal order.

In the role of Lewis, Dean is comically brooding and brutish as the character most likely not to succeed in ascending to the throne. Costumed by Jessica Crawford like a latter-day Freddie Mercury — all mesh and midriff — Dean wrings humor when shifting his glaring dislike for heir apparent Pippin to a fawning obedience to his mother.

Pippin lore holds that "Corner of the Sky" has endured as a popular audition number for theater artists, possibly since its 1972 premiere. Terry does justice to that catchy tune. But the Weston production's showstopper is, without a doubt, Barbara Lloyd's rendition of "No Time at All." Playing Pippin's grandmother Berthe, Lloyd delivers the song with verve and vitality when Pippin seeks his elder's counsel. She shares the lyrical life lesson "It's time to start living / Time to take a little from this world we're given" with equal measures wisdom and wit.

The number offers Pippin a useful perspective and the audience a toe-tapping tune to hear, and heed, long after the tinseled drapes have closed. The Weston rendition features players leading the audience through the chorus with placards showing lyrics.

Lloyd's bravura performance is a highlight of a show that, thanks also to musical director Larry Pressgrove and a nimble orchestra, propels Pippin forward with vital force. This becomes necessary in the second act, when the stakes for our wanderer, born into royalty and afflicted with the curse of the privileged class — ennui — can start to feel a little low.

The prospect of a fulfilling, important life is an invaluable prize. But falling short, for a person with Pippin's options, is not exactly the deadest of dead ends. Indeed, while the Leading Player may not get exactly what he wants, we get an ending to which we can relate.

This taut, high-spirited Pippin proves the search for purpose is not just a young man's game — and the journey really is more inspiring than the arrival.