No matter how mean and nasty your family is to you, no matter how jealous they are, even if they throw you in a well and then sell you to Egyptians, in the end, you are better off just forgiving them and moving on. They are, after all, the only family you have, and you might just as well be nice and make the best of it.
Are you listening to this, Virg?-
Last night we listened and laughed our way through a preposterous retelling of the ancient allegory of family jealousy and reconciliation at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
We enjoyed an amazing kaleidescope of musical genre unwinding this colorful yarn from the Book of Genesis.
Example: when you have sold off your little brother and you are lying to your father about his faked death, nothing sells it like a twangy country-western, “There’s Another Angel in Heaven Tonight.” Or, if the family fortune has turned sour and you rue your fates, a smoky French bistro with whining squeezebox sets just the right mood.
Disco (complete with revolving overhead mirror ball), soft rock, big band, calypso, jazz and lots of dancing enhanced the story-telling in ways your First Lutheran Sunday School teacher with her blue flannelboard would never dream.
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But the joint really got all shook up when Keith Rice played King Pharaoh as Elvis.
Keith has taken some wonderful romantic leads during his decades of work at Chan. He's now a dear aging sex symbol, with kids in Chaska Schools and a mortgage to pay. He’s a bit plump and could use a couple turns on a tanning bed. But he’s still the King of Chanhassen, and, like an over-the-hill Elvis bound into his costume, he can snarl and dominate and wink, and the ladies still scream and swoon, until, drenched and exhausted, he has finally left the building, thank you very much.
We’re coming back soon for the company Christmas party, and this is one production we look forward to seeing again.
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(Photo credit: Act One, Too Ltd)
