STORYBOOK RAISING THE BAR FOR MUSICALS
Vivid rendition of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat a magical effort
All the creative stars and planets aligned to make StoryBook Theatre’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat a magical dream of a show.
Theatre Calgary’s artistic director Stafford Arima should take in a performance before it ends on Dec. 29, as he will be directing the musical Billy Elliot for TC in April. He needs to see how high StoryBook’s Joseph has raised the bar for musicals created in Calgary.
Stage West’s five-star production of Jersey Boys doesn’t count because it is essentially a Toronto touring production. There is no Calgary talent on that stage, but in StoryBook’s Joseph, it’s 100 per cent Calgary triple talent on display.
As the show’s narrator and tour guide, Crystal Chaitan is a real dynamo who doesn’t just relate this Biblical story of the shepherd boy who became an adviser to Egypt’s Pharaoh Ramses. She lives it along with the characters in her tale. No longer a spectator, Chaitan sings and dances with the chorus members and, given how talented the dancers are, that’s no mean feat.
Chaitan’s voice is so clear that none of Tim Rice’s clever lyrics are lost, meaning children and adults alike know exactly what’s happening in the lives of Joseph, his family and the court of Ramses.
Alex Smith makes Joseph as multi-faceted as his coat is multicoloured. When we first meet Joseph, he’s a mischievous innocent and the scene in which he almost loses that innocence to the lecherous wife ( Victoria Erhardt) of pompous businessman Potiphar (Danny Gullekson) is hilarious, because Smith wavers between desire and terror.
When Joseph becomes second in command to Ramses (Steven Morton), he replaces his innocence with arrogance, as we see when he taunts his brothers when they come begging for food during the famine. Smith’s rendition of Joseph’s lament Close Every Door to Me is a showtopper because it is so poignant and powerful.
Scott Drewitz has directed and choreographed this Joseph to within an inch of perfection. Every song Joseph’s brothers sing becomes a full-throttle production number, including a country hoedown version of One More Angel in Heaven, a disco rendition of Go, Go Joseph and a swinging Caribbean tribute with Benjamin’s Calypso, but it’s the Apache dance Ryan Maschke and Roxy Drewitz execute in Those Canaan Days that’s the real eye-popper.
Drewitz makes certain the female and children’s choruses are showcased as much and as often as the male chorus and he lets Morton steal the spotlight with his hilarious, exacting Elvis parody in Song of the King.
The only downfall of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is that it runs barely 90 minutes — but Drewitz solves that with a curtain call extravaganza that highlights each of the major songs in the show and has it performed with the entire cast wearing white.
StoryBook’s Joseph is as impressive technically as it is vocally — with Terry Gunvordahl’s simple but clever and highly effective set, Sandy Forbes and Catherine Handford’s dazzling costumes and Lisa Floyd’s playful lighting design.
Musical director Susan Lexa lovingly protects Lloyd Webber’s infectious music.
During Go Go Joseph and Benjamin’s Calypso, there were young children standing at their seats bopping along to the music and imitating the moves of the dancers, which shows just how infectious it is and the whole audience took very little coaxing to clap in rhythm to several songs in the curtain call.
The only shame is that StoryBook’s theatre — The Beddington Theatre Arts Centre — is small which restricts the number of people who can see each show. The little youth theatre is growing beyond its walls with tremendous productions.
With the Grand Theatre downtown shuttered, its administrators should take a look at StoryBook’s success and insist that artistic manager JP Thibodeau move in lock, stock and barrel and make the Grand the community complex it was meant to be.