Cappies Review: Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

POOLESVILLE, MD — A Cappies review of the performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Poolesville High School on Saturday.

By Audrey Brown of Wakefield School

A father of twelve selects his favorite son to receive a lavish robe of every color imaginable. An Egyptian pharaoh tears off his coat to reveal his true passion for 50's rock-and-roll. And a camel with four mysteriously human feet periodically parades across the stage. That's all in a day's work in the Biblical times, perfectly portrayed by Poolesville High School in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This musical, now greatly beloved, was written by a 19-year old Andrew Lloyd Webber as a 20 minute "pop cantata" to be performed at a local preparatory school. From there, the show was performed on the West End and Broadway and has remained a classic ever since. Led by an ebullient narrator (in this case, two), the audience enjoys an updated Bible story in which Joseph, favorite son of Jacob, is given a beautiful coat of "red and yellow and green and brown"--the list goes on; his jealous brothers pretend to kill him as they sell him to a troupe of Ishmaelites, led by a certain four-sneakered camel; and Joseph uses his power to interpret dreams to weave his way out of the difficult situations that continually befall him.

Lloyd Webber and his lyricist, Tim Rice, included nods to nearly every existent music genre in writing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and for one to morph and mold himself to match the unique demands of each style is a feat. However, all of the members of Poolesville's cast did just that, and they portrayed the story with a playful energy in an ever changing palette of hues to match each scene and each theme. Sandy Egyptian yellow adorned the Pharaoh's servants' tunics and his white jumpsuit in which he swung his hips in a flawless Elvis impersonation. Orangey bronze shades of light transported the stage to a Southern square dance hoedown as eleven of Joseph's brothers belted in cowboy hats about what had happened to their brother. And a somber moment in the near-blackness accented by some chanters' golden candlelight portrayed Joseph's melancholy after being thrown in jail.

Among this rainbow of zeal was a series of solo performances that deserve special mention. Joseph himself (Ben Gherman) performed with an ease and confidence that verified his brothers' envy for him while making the audience fall in love with his smooth charm; and Mrs. Potiphar (Calley Mullins) brought a laugh with her hilariously suggestive physicality and perhaps too much chemistry with Joseph, even in a role whose onstage time was almost completely without speaking lines.

Although each individual character shone onstage, an even more impressive aspect of the musical was the various ensembles. From desperate Pharaoh fangirls to jealous Jacob offspring, every ensemble contained its own energy while also allowing each member to contribute his or her own unique personality. Most appreciated of all was the group of Joseph's eleven brothers; their first interaction with Joseph, when each performed his own "secret handshake" with Joseph, allowed the audience to fall in love with each as an individual, but even as certain brothers were featured alone in group songs (namely the hysterical French ballad singer Gad, played by Reid Taylor), the group was strongest acting together, like during an impactful moment in the song "Those Canaan Days" when the orchestra quieted and the boys' acapella harmonies rang throughout the auditorium.

Though the days of Joseph and the Bible are now far in the past, Poolesville has shown through a whirlwind of color and energy that some stories never grow old. "Any Dream Will Do" here, especially when accompanied by a sneakered camel.

From left to right: Brooke Speed, Nicole Durran, Ellen Beal, Calley Mullin, Kira Peck, Rhyston Broadhurst, Aniqa Islam, Isabelle Huntley, Bryce Taylor