<b>✭✭✭✭✩</b><b>
music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice, directed by Max Reimer
Drayton Entertainment, Dunfield Theatre, Cambridge
March 4-April 2, 2017
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Narrator: “If by chance you are here for the night.
Then all I need is an hour or two to tell the tale of a dreamer like you”
Drayton Entertainment has kicked off its 2017 season with a hugely enjoyable production of <i>Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat</i>. Director Max Reimer, designers Jean Claude Olivier and Rachel Berchtold and the cast have struck exactly the right note in presenting this jokey rock musical written by the teenaged Andrew Lloyd Webber. Like Lloyd Webber’s <i><a href="perma://BLPageReference/7DF14940-A463-493F-97F1-E53113F453F1">Jesus Christ Superstar</a></i> (1971), <i>Joseph</i> is really a staged rock oratorio since there is no spoken dialogue. Unlike <i>Superstar</i>, however, <i>Joseph</i> is deliberately aimed at an audience of children and includes an onstage children’s chorus. The trick is to find a middle ground that will make the show appealing to adults as well as children and that’s exactly what Drayton’s <i>Joseph</i> team has achieved.
Joseph began life as a 15-minute-long cantata written when Lloyd Webber was 19 for an all-boys school with pupils aged seven to thirteen. William Lloyd Webber (1914-82), the composer’s father and himself a well-known composer of sacred music, encouraged his son to expand the piece. After many different versions, the work arrived at its present form in its production in London’s West End in 1973. Because Lloyd Webber’s next work was <i>Jesus Christ Superstar</i>, many people thought of Joseph as a “follow-up” to that musical, when, in fact, <i>Joseph</i> was written first.
The expanded musical retains the work’s boys school origins in its frame where the Narrator (Danielle Wade) tells a group of children the story of Joseph (Genesis 37:1-36, 39:1 to 46:30) in the form of a musical. We meet Joseph (Jamie McKnight) and his eleven brothers. The brother are already jealous of Joseph because he is the favourite of their father Jacob (Wayne Berwick). When Jacob gives Joseph a coat of many colours this worsens the brothers’ jealously and when Joseph interprets two dreams that cast the brothers in a bad light they plot to do away with him.
Yet, instead of killing him as they had planned, they sell him as a slave to an Egyptian known as Potiphar (Sheldon Davis). When Potiphar finds the innocent Joseph with Potiphar’s seductive wife (Riley McCoy), he has him arrested and thrown in jail. The Pharaoh of Egypt (Mike Jackson) has has troubling dreams, and Joseph, known as an interpreter of dreams, is taken out of prison to help. Because of the accuracy of his interpretation, Pharaoh makes Joseph his vizier with power second only to his own.
Meanwhile, Jacob and his sons are suffering from famine and decide to travel to Egypt where (due to Joseph’s planning) there is plenty. When the brother meet Joseph in his Egyptian array they do not recognize them, but after Joseph tests their honesty, he reveals himself to them and travels back to Canaan to be reunited with his father.
What makes Joseph so utterly charming is that Lloyd Webber and his librettist Tim Rice tell the story from a child’s point of view. Just as medieval mystery plays used anachronism to make biblical figure appear like the audience’s contemporaries, so Lloyd Webber and Rice employ pop music in many different styles to convey the nature of the situations and characters with familiar references. The prime example is Pharaoh. Since he is the King, Lloyd Webber and Rice reimagine as the King of Rock, i.e. Elvis Presley.
When Rueben (Mark Harapiak) tells Jacob that Joseph is dead his song “One More Angel in Heaven” is in country western style. The aged Potiphar’s music imitates songs of the 1920s. When Simeon (Justin Bott) sings about life during the famine his song “Those Canaan Days” about the good times in the past is in the style of nostalgic French cabaret songs. When Judah (Jeremy Carter-James) offers himself as a replacement for Benjamin in Act 2, he sings a calypso. And the whole finale, “Joseph Megamix”, brings the music up to the present (of 1973) by reprising all the songs of the show to a disco beat.
The design for the show follows the same eclecticism. Jean Claude Olivier has painted the curtain for the stage-upon-the-stage in the naive manner of folk art to depict all the major scenes of Joseph’s story. Costume designer Rachel Berchtold has Rueben wear a ten-gallon hat when he sings his western song and Simeon a beret when he sings his French-inspired tune. Pharaoh first appears as a mummy in a sarcophagus, his baker in a modern chef’s toque, his butler in a modern apron and the women of ancient Egypt as belly dancers. While children may not understand that these are anachronisms, adults will find them consistently amusing.
The singing of the cast could not be better. In fact, the show reunites Danielle Wade, Jamie McKnight and Mike Jackson who all happened to appear in the Mirvish production of <i><a href="perma://BLPageReference/6D82AC2B-6CD9-4867-B633-F117661D95F0">The Wizard of Oz</a></i> in Toronto in 2013 as Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man.
Wade is a genial Narrator just like your favourite schoolteacher, able to inspire enthusiasm for her story in all around her. Wade has a strong voice which she can colour to suits the many moods of the story. McKnight has a gentle voice appropriate to the young Joseph. McKnight, who is also a classical tenor, sings in the head voice he uses for popular music which has a very attractive balance between strength and vulnerability. His main song “Any Dream Will Do” is uplifting and his second song “Close Every Door” quite moving. The only difficulty may be that in making Joseph seem so naive, McKnight neglects to give him much of a personality. That side only comes out once Joseph is in Egypt – first in his despair, then in his anger at his brother as vizier.
Mike Jackson’s Elvis-impersonator Pharaoh is a hip-swivelling hoot even though some of his words get lost in all his Elvis-style huffing and puffing. Mark Harapiak is delightfully insincere as Reuben, Sheldon Light reveals the decadent Potiphar as a study for Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar and Jeremy Carter-James gives an infectious rendition of “Benjamin’s Calypso”. But of all these cameos it is probably Justin Bott’s detailed Simeon, who, with his precious diction and French <i>hauteur</i> in the face of starvation who drew the most attention.
Above all, the 19-member children’s chorus played a vital role in emphasizing the work’s childlike nature. These were not children chosen just because they are decorative, but because they also have excellent singing and acting ability. One of designer Rachel Berchtold best ideas is to dress the children in T-shirts that reflect all the colours in Joseph’s dreamcoat, thus making Joseph into a representative on stage of all the children in the audience both on stage and off.
Besides the singing, Gino Berti’s choreography added immeasurably to the show’s impact. He built dances reflecting all the various styles of music that Lloyd Webber employs and successfully integrates the children with the adults. A particular highlight is the fantastic tango display performed by Shelley Kenney and David Light during “Those Canaan Days”.
This is an enjoyable show in an effervescent production. Its length at under two hours, its theme about a bullied child who triumphs and its string of memorable tunes makes this perfect entertainment for a family. The show is so much fun you may well think that one viewing is not enough.
©Christopher Hoile
Venues after Dunfield Theatre, Cambridge, ON:
• Drayton Festival Theatre, Drayton
May 17-June 4, 2017;
• Huron Country Playhouse, Grand Bend
June 7-24, 2017;
• King’s Wharf Theatre, Penetanguishene
August 10-September 3, 2017
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Jamie McKnight (centre) as Joseph with ensemble; Jamie McKnight (centre) as Joseph with ensemble; Jamie McKnight as Joseph and Danielle Wade as Narrator with ensemble.©2017 Hilary Gauld Camilleri.
For tickets, visit ww<a href="http://www.draytonentertainment.com">w.draytonentertainment.com.</a>
<b>2017-03-06</b>
<b>Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat</b>