Like the bible, only trippier (and much more worthwhile)

Maybe some of you remember the stories of Joseph? (You can probably guess rendition of these stories you'll find...)

Anyway, I saw the current tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat today, and it was both extremely fun and extremely awesome. It covers some version of several of the stories at the end of Genesis. I assume that much of the colorfulness was around in earlier versions, but there are numerous things that most likely were less extreme in old version and some that definitely were not in old versions that I really enjoyed.

Naturally, he colorfulness of everything wasn't surprising at all, but I liked a lot of the extra things they did. First, some of the anachronisms were extremely amusing. My favorite was when we see Potiphar counting shekels while his slave holds up his laptop for him. (Potiphar uses one finger to count his shekels.) Earlier, when Joseph and Son's commercial interests are discussed, we see Joseph briefly doing business on a cell phone. Other times, we see modern trappings like high fives (which may well have been in the earlier versions of the musical) and body bumps, which I first recall seeing in the mid to late 90s.

Another awesome thing was the various musical/clothing styles. Pharoah/Elvis made the Egyptian girls swoon. (This whole scene was seriously funny. I knew it was Elvis from the very beginning---from the palace with giant sunglasses and his starting with his back to the crowd.) Potiphar and his crowd are wearing yuppy outfits and Potiphar is playing golf. When Joseph is lost (and deemed dead), we see a western theme, with a slow, mourning country song (when Jacob is present) alternating with a fast-paced celebration when he's not. There was also a scene that gave me visions of Fifth Element and Space Channel 5 (not that I ever played that game, but the style was distinct), which included lots of neon clothes and wigs. When Canaan was starving and Egypt was not, we see a view of "Cafe Canaan" with Frenchmen sadly reminiscing about how things used to be (complete with a French maid to mock them). At some point, there was also a calypso song, complete with limbo spears held by two guards. There was also the whole Grease thing at some point (with Joseph's brothers) and the grand finale had an R & B element to it.

Almost everything was very good. There were some little kids from a local elementary school who had bit roles and lacked the talent of the others, but thankfully they were mostly part of the background.

An upcoming musical I want to see is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It starts at the Pantages on August 15th, so maybe some of you (Lemming?) are interested in that.

Also, the lyricist for Joseph, Tim Rice, was also involved with the play Chess in which he collaborated with two members of ABBA. I hadn't previously realized the two B's from ABBA were involved, but in retrospect it makes sense. A new version of Chess is slated for the near future, and I have really wanted to see that for many years---in part because it is the origin of the song "One Night in Bangkok." All together now: "I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine!"