Jac Yarrow as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.Cylla von Tiedemann/Mirvish
- Title: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- Music by: Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Lyrics by: Tim Rice
- Director: Laurence Connor
- Choreographer: Joann M. Hunter
- Actors: Jac Yarrow, Vanessa Fisher, Tosh Wanogho-Maud, Shane Antony-Whitely, Matt Gibson, Will Hawksworth
- Company: Mirvish Productions
- Venue: Princess of Wales Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: To Feb. 18, 2023
Critic’s Pick
As the song goes, “Way, way back, many centuries ago” – well, okay, in the 1990s – I saw my first production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That was the famed Garth Drabinsky-produced spectacular starring erstwhile pop heartthrob Donny Osmond – the Shawn Mendes of his day, as I’ve explained to my daughter.
Cut to 2022 and we have a new Joseph in Toronto, minus Donny and Garth, but still spectacular. And still a whole lot of fun. The hit London Palladium production, making its North American debut at the Princess of Wales Theatre (courtesy of Drabinsky’s old rival, David Mirvish), reminded me of why this early Lloyd Webber-Rice confection is so durably charming.
The work of a composer and a lyricist at the start of their careers – their breakthrough follow-up was Jesus Christ Superstar – it bubbles with youthful cheekiness and wit. The songs abound in pastiche and parody. It’s a young person’s show in every way, from its high-energy 25-member cast, joined by a bevy of talented local kids, to its joyfully juvenile spirit.
Matt Gibson as Reuben, Vanessa Fisher as The Narrator and the company.Cylla von Tiedemann/Mirvish
How appropriate then that its Joseph is a bright-eyed newcomer: Welsh actor-singer Jac Yarrow, who went straight from theatre school to fronting this production when it premiered at the Palladium in 2019. It earned him raves and an Olivier Award nomination, which isn’t surprising. He has the smiling ease of a seasoned performer, bringing to the part both the lighthearted self-confidence of a favourite son and, later, the emotional weight of a wronged man facing a bleak future.
Of course, the show’s real heavy lifting is done by its Narrator, endowed here with playful panache by Vanessa Fisher. Sporting a big personality and the pipes to match it, Fisher is a splendid guide through this joke-laden, family-friendly retelling of the Joseph story from Genesis.
That story, in case you’re not up on your Biblical lore, finds Joseph, the preferred child of Israelite patriarch Jacob, stripped of the multicoloured robe gifted by his father and sold into slavery by his 11 jealous brothers. However, thanks to his knack for interpreting prophetic dreams, Joseph wins his freedom and a job as right-hand man to Egypt’s Pharaoh.
Word is that Osmond was originally approached to play the part of that rockin’ ruler, a gold-swathed Elvis figure. I’m happy he declined, as that would have deprived us of Tosh Wanogho-Maud’s wildly entertaining performance. He channels not just a pelvis-swivelling Presley, but a screaming Little Richard, and is as fabulously kitschy as his Vegas-on-the-Nile palace.
Director Laurence Connor, known for rebooting the old mega-musicals of Lloyd Webber et al., makes the most of this show’s goofily eclectic tunes. When Joseph’s brothers deliver a facetious elegy for their sibling – the country-tinged One More Angel in Heaven – it evolves into a full-blown hoedown that looks like a Middle Eastern production of Oklahoma! When they sing Those Canaan Days – probably the funniest song ever written about a famine – it morphs from a mournful French chanson to a high-kicking cancan routine. (Cue the wisecrack: “I said Canaan, not cancan!”) JoAnn M. Hunter must’ve had a ball choreographing this crazy-quilt of a show, which also includes a calypso spoof as well as cheerleading and tap-dance numbers.
Joseph famously started out as a cantata for a school choir and those roots are reflected in its use of children, who begin as the Narrator’s eager listeners and then help her tell the tale. For the Toronto run, 16 local child actors have been recruited, eight of whom appear at each performance. Their involvement is especially delightful, whether they are fleshing out the lineup of brothers – complete with fake beards – operating life-sized camel puppets, or making scene-stealing cameos. On opening night, Nendia Lewars as an indignant little goat got the biggest laughs.
There are times when you feel you’re watching both a very accomplished school pageant and a giant, real-life cartoon. Morgan Large’s sun-baked desert set looks like a bit of vintage Disney animation, vividly lit by Ben Cracknell with almost as many colours as Joseph’s coat. The show’s humour extends to Large’s comical costumes as well as the joking decor. If you’re hunting for Easter eggs (an odd thing to be doing this time of year), check out the mock hieroglyphs on Pharaoh’s palace walls – you just might spot the trademark for another Lloyd Webber show.
Joseph does have its dramatic and inspirational moments. It is, after all, the tale of an exceptional young man overcoming adversity, finding his place in the world and discovering the power of dreams. Those aspects are expressed in the show’s best – and best-known – songs, Close Every Door and Any Dream Will Do. They foreshadow Rice and Lloyd Webber’s more serious works to come, JCS and Evita. In particular, Close Every Door, the imprisoned Joseph’s declaration of fortitude and faith, which gets an impassioned delivery from Yarrow, points to the direction the duo were headed in.
Ultimately, though, Joseph is what I remembered it to be – cheerful family fare. And this exuberant production is the perfect holiday treat.
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