We joined with neighbors tonight to attend a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Hale Center Theater in Orem.
It was very, very well done.
Dreamcoat is, so far as I can tell, an utterly vacuous play. If it has any kind of a real point or serious idea, I’ve never been able to discern what it might be. But its music is fantastic, it’s exceedingly clever, it’s very funny, and it’s wonderfully entertaining. Moroever, as I say, they did a fantastic job. Highly recommended.
As it happens, I’m teaching a course on the Qur’an in Arabic this semester and, currently, we’re finishing up the chapter of Yusuf or Joseph — which parallels the account in Genesis. I’m planning to share some of the insights from tonight’s performance in my class tomorrow afternoon. Once you recognize the presence of French cabaret music in the ancient story, as well as calypso and country and, well, something like Elvis, much that was enigmatic in the tale becomes instantly clear.
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