[NEohioPAL] Review of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at Mercury Theatre Company

[Bob Abelman]

Shtick adds vivacity, ambiguity to Mercury Theatre’s re-envisioned ‘Joseph’  



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, American Theatre Critics Association



“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” was written in the late-1960s by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, who were themselves in their early-20s.



Their imprudence as young artists gave “Joseph” an infectious playfulness that helped make it one of the most enduring shows in the American musical theater catalog.  



Director Pierre-Jacques Brault has upped the show’s playfulness quotient in Mercury Theatre Company’s current production by setting it in an MGM soundstage during the Classical era of Hollywood cinema.  Here, during the filming of his epic story, Joseph’s amazing coat brings Technicolor to a black and white world populated with iconic actors, including Charlie Chaplin, Mae West and the Marx Brothers.



The soundstage concept is a bit muddled and occasionally at odds with the show’s intentions, but it adds layers of entertaining shtick to the storytelling and provides Brault and his designers (Nichols Thornburg (scenic), Michael Jarett (lighting), and Katelyn Jackson (costume)) with plenty of opportunities to engage in creative staging on a multi-tier performance space.  



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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