Sunday, June 18, 2017

QUICK TAKE REVIEW By Beverly Creasey JOYOUS JOSEPH



Director Susan Chebookjian’s charming JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT for Reagle Music Theatre (through June 18th) allows the Sunday school musical to be as simple and sweet as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice intended it to beand she gets lovely resonance from the show’s (oft repeated) big message number, Any Dream Will Do: “The world is still waiting, hesitating…” (How’s that for topical!)

Any dream may do but just any old Joseph won’t. Donnie Osmond owned the role for decades. Luckily Reagle has the remarkable Peter Mill in the lead. He’s an innocent when the story needs him to be and he transforms himself into a majestic prophet when his gift takes over the plot. Mill’s Joseph is so beatific, he seems lit from within.

Andrew Giordano supplies the big laughs as Pharoah Presley, flirting shamelessly with the audience, gyrating those infamous hips. A great deal of the humor is embedded in the choreography (also Chebookjian): I think I spied an incongruous Gerry Garcia in the hilarious ‘60s go go number! Her clever tango enlivens “Those Canaan Days” and a charismatic Taavon Gamble makes short work of the calypso caper.

Pulling the whole shebang together and herding the wonderful children’s chorus is the character of the narrator, stylishly portrayed by Ayla Brown. My only quibble with the show is the redux… and I’m definitely in the minority. The children in the audience were whipped into a frenzy when it began to repeat. They were on their feet waving their programs and squealing at fever pitch.