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 be—and
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.
