It’s not the “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” that one expects. It’s not even the Lamb’s Players Theatre “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” to which Lamb’s fans have grown accustomed. The theater group produced it previously at their former National City locale and San Diego Repertory Theatre. This current version is hip and streamlined, with an off-the-wall launch, a tad of updating and an ensemble of nine that make believers of us all, and I don’t mean that in the biblical sense.
By its very nature, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical is irreverent (think their later “Jesus Christ Superstar”). In the case of the earlier work, it’s not necessary to be an Old Testament familiar to enjoy the story of Joseph, favorite son of the biblical patriarch Jacob (Keith Jefferson, fabulously nimble physically and vocally). Endearingly played by Spencer Moses, Joseph is given a marvelous coat (“When I got to try it on, I knew my sheepskin days were done”) and then is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers (Steve Limones, Jon Lorenz and Lance Smith, all of whom play numerous roles). Season Duffy, Colleen Kollar and Joy Yandell play all the wives and other women ” and sometimes the other men.
Joseph is seduced by his boss’s nymphomaniac wife and tossed into prison, to be redeemed much later by an Elvis-like Pharaoh (Smith), whose dreams ” which portend seven years of plenty, seven years of famine ” need interpreting. Pharaoh is so impressed with Joseph’s predictions that he appoints Joseph Number Two Man of the kingdom. Eventually Joseph is reunited with and forgives his brothers (they are starving in Canaan).
Encompassing musical styles from country-western, vaudeville, Paris “La vie en rose” to rock and roll, the tongue-in-cheek story is told in song by The Narrator, played by Deborah Gilmour Smyth, who surpasses even herself in vocal beauty and clarity of diction. She’s simply the best Narrator ever experienced on stage or on film.
The musicians “” Patrick Marion, Rik Ogden, Dave Rumley and Oliver Shirley “” are wonderful. G. Scott Lacy is musical director and Kollar provides the neat choreography. Michelle Hunt’s amusing costume design, Nathan Peirson’s lighting and Patrick Duffy’s immaculate sound design enhance all. Robert Smyth’s staging is facile; so facile, in fact, that the evening clocks in at 90 minutes, so take the kids.
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” plays at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 4 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through July 28 at 1142 Orange Ave., Coronado. Tickets ($14 to $54) may be purchased by visiting www.lambsplayers.org or calling (619) 437-0600.
