Metro Pulse/Backstage/Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

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What:
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

When:
Aug. 9 - Sept. 1

Where:
Bijou Theatre Center

Cost:
$18-24 for adults, $10-14 for children. Call 1-877-865-8710 for info.

'Joseph' knows its audience

by Paige M. Travis

If you are the type of person who goes to see rock operas written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice about Bible stories, you will be pleased as punch with the Cumberland County Playhouse's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Bijou Theatre. (If, however, you are another type of person, perhaps one who craves more thought-provoking, secular, low-key, child-free, family-discomforting theater, you might want to see the Actors Co-op's production of Lysistrata instead. See the calendar Spotlights page for info.)

Joseph is the Biblical story of Jacob's favorite son Joseph. Jacob lavishes Joseph with special attention and praise, which gives the young man a big head and makes his 11 brothers pretty jealous. They get tired of his attitude, steal his favorite coat of many colors, sell him into slavery, and tell their father that he died trying to save them. The story, via a series of musical numbers cast in a variety of styles and depictions of American pop culture, follows Joseph through his trials and tribulations and shows how he is eventually reunited with his repentant brothers.

CCP has done a great job conceiving and realizing this blockbuster musical, which has starred Andy Gibb, David Cassidy, and Donnie Osmond in the title role. The whole production is colorful and lively and enthusiastically carried out by an enormous, stage-busting cast of 43 adults and 23 children dressed in a fabulous array of costumes. The singers are in good voice, and the dancers move well (even when they don't have much space to move in). With a song a minute and hardly any dialogue (it really is an opera) there's never a slow moment. The two main singers are the narrator, played by Holly Rector, and Joseph, played by her husband Lester Rector. Their powerful voices give Joseph an expansive Broadway feel that makes the lights seem brighter and the stage bigger. Their talent leads this production past the level of hometown musical and into off-Broadway status.

The only flaws in the production were rare and only mildly distracting. The sound from the microphones was occasionally dodgy, which made some voices louder than others and some of the lyrics unintelligible. And the music seemed mostly created by a keyboard; live orchestral music, which may have been impossible given the size of the Bijou, would've given the show more depth.

It's interesting to see many actors familiar from other Knoxville stages in this cheery spectacle, particularly Tony Cede�o, a frequenter of the Clarence Brown Theatre stage. He pops up in the most surprising roles, perhaps none more unexpected than his turn as Joseph's brother Simeon. Dressed in green and plaid, Cede�o dances his heart out with the rest of the cast and displays his superb acting skills with the song "Those Canaan Days," one of the show's campier numbers.

Yes, Joseph is campy. And churchy too. It's a weird mix I don't entirely understand. But judging by the roar of applause and cheers at Saturday night's show, the crowd approved. Which brings me to something that's been on my mind for a while. Every CCP production I've been to at the Bijou has been packed, which I take to mean that Knoxville audiences are responding well to the theater's new executive director, Jim Crabtree, and his adaptation of the Bijou into CCP East.

I can't say I have the same enthusiasm for the Playhouse's season of family-friendly, mostly Christian-centric, middlebrow plays. But I am clearly not the CCP's audience, in age, religious affiliation, or taste in theater. And while I'd to have the Bijou returned to being a venue for popular music concerts and a wider variety of avant garde theater and dance, I also want the Bijou to survive financially, which Crabtree's takeover was intended to achieve.

So I will continue to feel conflicted by CCP's habitation of the Bijou (which leaves little to no space in the calendar for other groups who formerly used the Bijou for their own Knoxville-based productions). Crabtree and Co. are successfully turning the Bijou into an outlet of the Cumberland County Playhouse, even going as far as changing show time from Knoxville's traditional 8 p.m. to jibe with Crossville's preference for 7:30 p.m. So don't get caught, like I did, thinking that all weekend-night plays in Knoxville start at 8 p.m. No more. See, you're in Cumberland County now when you go to the Bijou—in more ways than one.