Thoughts on a “Run of Crazy Dreams”

Joseph, with his famous Coat, coming to The Lexington Theatre Company

As observed by Kevin Lane Dearinger 

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is always touching, sweetly sincere, and fun. 

Really fun. 

So, perhaps a few fun facts about Joseph? 

Okay, then.

For instance, the much-loved musical started as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. English, you know, with that “u” popped in.

Then the American folks who hold the trademark to Technicolor (no “u”) threatened to sue for unauthorized use of their brand name. 

Composer and future lord of the realm, Andrew Lloyd Webber replied, “Fine. We’ll just call it Joseph and the Amazing Eastman Color Dreamcoat.

Cheeky bloke. 

Technicolor backed off. 

And Lloyd Webber dropped the English “u” from the spelling. 

Joseph is such a Lloyd Webber show. 

That man has written some great musicals.

But...

Is Joseph the one about the overheated dancers in layers of fur and face-paint? 

Grrr.

Is Joseph the one with the guy in the mask and the Parisian chandelier going boom? 

Non, mon ami! 

Is it the one with the crazy lady in the turban coming down the big staircase, and it’s not Patti Lupone on Broadway? 

No, Mr. DeMille, but give the lady a swimming pool!

Is it the one with the other crazy lady waving her arms on the balcony, and it is Patti Lupone, stopping the show—only this time in a good way? 

Don’t cry for her, but no.

Is it the one created as a fifteen-minute oratorio for a boys’ school in England?

Well, yes! That’s the one! 

So stick around.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Andrew Lloyd Webber and his lyricist-partner Tim Rice were not famous. They were young, ambitious, and eager to show off their talents. A friend asked them to put together a short piece as an entertainment for the parents at a boys’ school near London.

For their plot, they turned to The Bible, a reliable source for plots, and found Joseph. And his brethren. That is to say, they found the genesis for their show in the Book of Genesis. Rice recognized that the Joseph story had everything: a strong narrative with “sympathetic characters, a flawed hero, and redeemable villains.” It was “a story of triumph over odds, of love and hate, of forgiveness and optimism.” 

Reasons to tell a story, reasons to sing, and a happy ending, too.

The “pop cantata” was a success with the parents at the school. Word was out that the show was a charmer, tuneful and touching. Also, a promising hit. A possible money-maker. That was in 1968.

Other productions cropped up across England, each one expanding from the original concept. In 1972, a thirty-five-minute edition played to acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival. Expanded to two-acts, but still in transition, it reached London’s West End in 1974. The show now offered roles for women, including the important narrator, always intended for a charismatic female performer. Rice included references to ‘Memphis” in a comic salute to all-things Elvis, intending it as an Egyptian reference, and only recalling later that Memphis, the one in Tennessee, was home to “The King” and Graceland. Elvis Presley rules! Always has. 

The song “Any Dream Will Do” was a revision of a pop song called “I Fancy You,” which Rice had intended for Herman’s Hermits, famous for “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” and “I’m ‘Enery the Eighth I Am.” It was that kind of crossover musical world in those days.

(Please pause now to honor the Hermits and sing these hit songs if they live in your memory. But you must employ whatever version of a cockney accent you can manage.)

Tim Rice later cringed over the false rhymes he created for Joseph, blaming them on his youth and inexperience. 

Mean with dream. 

Fine with time. 

And his greatest disgrace, according to Rice: biscuit with district. 

In fact, these delightfully silly rhymes are part and parcel of the show’s fun. 

Granted, the judicious should certainly continue to question the mysterious rhyming of “pajamas” with “farmers.” 

Try it. Try it again. Bizarre and oddly Bostonian, isn’t it?

But still fun.

By the way, lyricist Rice only contributed a few primary colors to Joseph’s legendary coat. The rest of the long litany of colors and shades of color— “cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey”—were suggested by the schoolboys who first performed the song. Not that they receive royalties. 

Please note the English spelling: “grey.” Know your roots! 

The show went on evolving, finding its way back to London in several variations, and then to Broadway, at last, in 1982, where it was a crowd-pleasing hit. It was revived in New York in 1993, having, more or less, reached its current form. 

Professional touring and stock productions continue to play successfully across America and throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Of course, it is one of the most often produced musicals in schools, and always joyfully so. Tim Rice has gone on record to say that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is the Webber & Rice musical most likely to survive on stage into the 22nd century. 

In those early days, just after their boys’ school success, Webber and Rice briefly considered devoting all their future efforts to writing school musicals. Instead they wrote Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. And they went on, separately, to write a long string of musical theatre hits. 

Tim Rice is on record as the “21st richest music millionaire.” 

Andrew Lloyd Webber owns half the United Kingdom. 

And several of the smaller planets. 

When it first appeared in America, Joseph was advertised as a “Rock Musical,” but it has never been that much of a Hard Rock Musical. Jesus Christ Superstar managed that. Rather well. 

In the traditions of The Lexington Theatre Company, however, the show is more of a “Brock Musical,” the sort of pastiche of musical genres that allows The Lex’s resident musical director Dr. Brock Terry to showcase his amazing mastery of various styles: rock ‘n’ roll, country-western, bubble gum, French café, power ballad, near-hymn, and Elvis-evoking. Joseph celebrates music of many colors. 

(Colours? Colors!)

All of these tunes, of course, written before Lloyd Webber decided to be Puccini. Sort of. 

And it’s all fun. 

So much fun.

Lord Andrew and Sir Tim have each written autobiographies. Of the two, Rice’s book is the more entertaining and better detailed. It was a principal resource for this modest divertissement. [Rice, Tim, Oh, What a Circus: the Autobiography.‎ Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., London, 1999.]

The Lexington Theatre Company’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat plays the Lexington Opera House for six delicious performances, July 31-August 3. Curtain time on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening at 7:30, Sunday at 6:30, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 1:00.

Kevin Lane Dearinger is a retired actor, singer, and teacher. His published works include four theatre histories, six volumes of poetry, several plays, and two memoirs, Bad Sex in Kentucky and On Stage with Bette Davis: Inside the Fabulous Flop of Miss Moffat. His theatrical career took him to Broadway, on tour across the United States, Canada, and Japan, and to many of the best regional theatres in the country. Cast lists have called him Freddy, Cornelius, Motel, Albert, Henrik, Enoch, Enoch, Jr., Jim, Etienne, Courtice, Herman, Charlie, Lucas, Sam, Paul, Mac, Josiah, Frank, Billy, Sylvester, Waldo, Teenager, The Boy, Androcles, Dromio, First Bartender, Footman, Flunky, Also Featuring, Others in Cast Include, and quite a few other character names. When he was very young, he sang in a Broadway tribute to director Joshua Logan at the Imperial Theatre; his last professional performance was in a Broadway tribute to Stephen Sondheim at the New Amsterdam. He is proud of his Actors Equity Pension and counts among his blessings the privilege of sitting in on rehearsals with The Lexington Theatre Company.