There is an unspoken understanding that a work of art or entertainment, like a painting or a film, is inherently a product of its time. When writing about it, a critic would reflect on the personal experiences of the creators; what the art world was going through, and what was happening in the wider world at the time.
With theatre, however, it's a lot more complicated. Live performance is a living thing, its elements and relevance reckoned with and revisited by every new creative team that ascends a revival production. There is no visual indication (like the graininess of the film or the fading gold frame of a piece of art) that indicates to an audience they are revisiting a past time. Here, the critique cannot be solely contextual: it must reflect on the show’s relevance to the new world in which it is performed.
The choice to include a full cast of children plays out as devastatingly strategic
Traditionalists will lament that a product of its time cannot be changed. Seen most starkly in the world of opera, shows like Puccini’s Turandot and Madama Butterfly continue to be produced by mainstage theatre companies in their original form, and audiences continue to buy tickets, despite widespread criticism of their depiction and appropriation of other cultures.
When it comes to the most recent revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a 1960s musical re-telling of a story in the bible’s Old Testament, the narrative is much the same – generations of audience nostalgia keeps ticket sales high and productions fairly dated. When a New Zealand production of the show changed the phrase “children of Israel” and subsequently removed two songs to be more inclusive, creators Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice themselves retorted that “you cannot re-invent a Bible story”. And yet, this Webber-and-Rice-approved West End production now touring at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre seems to contain plenty of amendments, just not the kind of amendments that would endear it to a modern audience.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Old Testament, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (aka Joseph) follows the story of Joseph (Euan Fistrovic Doidge), son of Jacob, a polygamist with 12 sons. Joseph has the ability to see and interpret dreams and is his father’s favourite. Jacob gifts Joseph a multi-coloured coat as a marker of his affection. This causes jealousy amongst his brothers, and they seek revenge by selling him into slavery. The book itself is a rather straightforward, somewhat camp, musical retelling based on The Children’s Wonder Book of Bible Stories, that aims to inspire children to dream and follow who they are. Despite this intention, this production leaves much to be desired.
The score by Andrew Lloyd Webber provides a recipe for a glorious musical spectacle, traversing multiple genres – Broadway, country, jazz, gospel and traditional ballads are all accounted for. The mixing and merging of musical styles is mimicked in the characters’ mixing of accents, as well the show’s choreography – high-energy dance breaks with tap, can-can, hip-hop and krumping.
Although music director Peter Rutherford creates a memorable musical tapestry, all of this is hijacked by Morgan Large’s costume and set design. True to the original, this production has taken ‘camp’ to mean tacky and inappropriate, donning the ensemble in multi-coloured head scarfs, fake beards and kaftans. There remains an unimaginative and incessant fixation on Egyptian motifs. For the majority of the second half, female dancers are dressed in gold two-pieces (like the costume Princess Leia is wearing when she is captured by Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars) and black braided wigs, and made to repeat incessantly the same four, stereotypical ‘Egyptian walk’ steps between two giant robotic Pharoah-like statues. This kind of exoticising shorthand is insulting. It’s like The Mummy threw up all over the stage.
What does work well in this production is the ensemble: director Laurence Connor has created a sense of the collective with this cast. The songs are most memorable when delivered in enthusiastic unison. The ensemble succeeds in delivering with such gusto that Doidge’s Joseph often pales in comparison. He is not given the chance to show the same command of the stage he has shown in previous break-out roles (such as Blaine Tuttle in Cruel Intentions: the ’90s Musical).
Doidge’s boyish charm is repeatedly overpowered by Paulini’s narrator, whose vocal range and command of the stage display the star power that she has always possessed (though it is often unclear if she thinks herself narrator or conductor). Trevor Ashley’s Elvis-impersonating Pharaoh is a glimmer of hope in this production (when you can hear him), exuding jubilance and charm, finally able to deliver the camp tone the show was aiming for, with a Las Vegas-style neon sign hanging from the roof to signal outwardly to the farcicality of it all.
The choice to include a full cast of children in this production, who all deliver sound performances, anchors its purpose as a children’s re-telling – but in certain scenes, it plays out as devastatingly strategic.
In ‘Potiphar’, the book’s controversial sexual assault scene remains, but in this production, the child cast acts as guards, and a fluffy children’s blanket is used to cover Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, trivialising issues of consent under the mask of innocence. ‘Benjamin Calypso’ is perhaps the show’s most difficult song to give a modern reckoning, due to being written in the Caribbean calypso style. This production has made welcome changes by removing accents, but then it strategically tasks one of the few POC (Person of Colour) child cast members with the starting vocal. Although he performs it valiantly, it is unclear whether this is because there are no appropriate adult People of Colour in the cast to lead the part, or whether they think that audiences will find the song less problematic if it is led by children.
In contrast, the child casting has subverted gender in some cases, with a butler even correcting her pronouns on stage. It’s great that they have made these amendments, but unfortunate that the show’s creators, who are arguing for tradition, are comfortable modernising certain elements, but unwilling to make changes that address long-standing issues of consent and cultural appropriation. In this production they have even added a questionable dance break that sees mostly white dancers dressed in hijabs can-can their way to liberation.
Live performance is a living thing with the power to influence new and younger audiences. It is a power that must be wielded carefully through the lens of the current day, or we risk alienating entire segments of our audience and perpetuating historic injustices. This production marks a lost opportunity to bring core tenets of Christianity (‘love thy neighbour as yourself’) to a new generation.
If you’re a die-hard fan of Joseph, then this production may do just enough to fulfil your fantasy of seeing it live and in colour. But at the end of the day, it’s you, the audience, that decides what you buy tickets to, and what standards you wish to support.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat plays at the Capitol Theatre, Haymarket, until April 16, 2023. Find tickets and info here.