Play Review: Hunk of Burning Bible

Greg Daniels, the creator of the American version of TV's The Office,  once described his vision for the show by drawing a Venn diagram of two slightly overlapping circles. One represented high-quality work, and the other, what people actually liked. Daniels said he wanted The Office to live in that slim eyelet of intersection, a rare goal in American culture today and an even rarer accomplishment.

Music commentator Chuck Klosterman described this phenomenon when discussing the Beatles, who throughout their career were the best and most popular rock band in the world. No band since has ever simultaneously been the best and most the popular, and few have tried.

As the Beatles were dissolving, two other Brits, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, were progressing through the parallel world of musical theater as they regressed through the Bible, from Jesus Christ Superstar back to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Since an early run in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1972, Joseph has been one of the most consistent crowd-pleasers in musical theater, and watching its current incarnation at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, it's easy to see why. The story's narrative arc is clear, the jokes still play well, the action never lags, and each song is catchy enough to stick inside your head all day. Conscious of the strengths of the script and score, the Civic Light Opera's current production is lithe, bouncing and shimmery.

The story begins in the mythological prehistory of the book of Genesis, where the loaded widower Jacob (Paul Ainsley) lavishes gifts and affection on his son Joseph (Eric Kunze) while neglecting his other sons.  Like so many L.A. trust fund kids, Joseph's arrogance is blithe and wholly unselfconscious, and when his father gives him a robe that looks like Elton John's lounge wear, he prances and pirouettes around his brothers, who grumble as they pet the hem. Their hackles keep rising as Joseph relays dreams that he will someday rule them, and they decide to get rid of daddy's favorite, selling him into slavery and bound for Egypt. There, Joseph's fortunes rise and fall and rise again, until he becomes the Pharaoh's No. 2 man. When a drought hits the region and Joseph's brothers come to Egypt groveling for food, he must decide whether to forgive them. 

But at its core, Joseph is not a show rooted in pathos or human relationships, and this production in particular downplays the sad in favor of the fun, which fits the cast's talents well. Kunze was born to flounce, and here he's '70s-tastic, channeling a trio of Carter-era heartthrobs: Mark Hamill (the outfit Kunze wears pre-Dreamcoat is straight out of Star Wars, as is his yearning to escape his Podunk roots for the big time), Barry Gibb (disco hair, sparkly eyes, strutting), and especially Donny Osmond, the primo Joseph (permanent smile, inability ever to look believably miserable). Kunze is the light heart of this lighthearted show, and if his voice goes gravelly when it rises too far from its tessitura, if his mopeyness seems a bit put-on during the show's few moody numbers ("Close Every Door," to name one), these are small complaints about a deft and lively performance. 

Throughout the show, Joseph's counterpoint is the Narrator (Kelli Provart), who stands outside the action—sort of—and lubricates the plot's twists and turns for the audience. Provart is perfect—a bit wry, a bit cutesy, with a voice like a tomahawk, and, as important, the knowledge when to use it as such. Moreover, her stage business throughout (petting a stuffed animal goat, tossing a turkey leg into a starving horde) added zest to the already energetic visuals, brilliantly choreographed by longtime team Johnny Dean Harvey and Chad Everett Allen. It isn't surprising the pair's experience includes the opening and closing ceremonies for the Special Olympics and the Goodwill Games. Joseph's choreography is grand, fluid and fast, and the continuous motion—often comic and always precisely synced—pairs marvelously with the script, nearly every word of which is sung.      

The backbone of that muscular choreography is the troupe of 11 brothers and the female ensemble, both of which were outstanding across the spectrum of song/dance types: disco, cowpoke lope, girl-fan mob, Egyptian frieze strut, Weimar cabaret, '60s bop, even a charming Bollywood set added especially for this show. The featured performers for each of these numbers were topnotch: Danny Stiles as Reuben twanging fake heartache after selling Joseph into slavery in "One More Angel in Heaven"; Andrew Makay as Simeon, piling on a ridiculous French accent in the bistro chanson of "Those Canaan Days" (which included a remarkable apache dance interlude); Robert J. Townsend as Pharaoh, a King in more ways than one; and most of all, Ty Taylor, who introduced his springy "Benjamin Calypso" with a mini-Gospel aria that swung every head in the house his way.     

As a work of art, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat doesn't venture into the emotional depths of A Day in the Life, let alone Götterdämmerung, but it's an impressive cyborg of a 3,000-year-old story with a smorgasbord of late 20th century musical styling. Just because Joseph isn't highbrow doesn't mean it isn't good. It's perched on the narrow crossbeam where quality and popularity meet. This run in particular is a guiltless pleasure: a very good production of a good show.