STAGE REVIEW : Biblical Elvis and a Regular Joe on Lamb’s Stage

NATIONAL CITY â€”  For a dead guy, Elvis Presley sure is having a hot year in San Diego.

First the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre packs a stage with the story of an Elvis fan who collects everything from Elvis lamps to hand towel memorabilia in “Eden Court.�

Then, the San Diego Repertory Theatre presents a bittersweet valentine to the aging and bloated king in “Are You Lonesome Tonight?�

But nowhere is Elvis having a better time than at Lamb’s Players Theatre, where Mike Buckley plays him as a singing, dancing Pharaoh in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,� by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, through Nov. 12.

The Presley imitation at Lamb’s is just for fun--and good fun it is too, just like the rest of the show. Based on the biblical story of Joseph and his 11 brothers, “Joseph� doesn’t offer revisionist analysis like a later Webber/Rice collaboration, “Jesus Christ Superstar,� or the Thomas Mann-like psychodrama of “Joseph and His Brothers� that plunges into the minds and the hearts of the characters.

But the story is true to the original in its own quirky, off-beat fashion. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, so they sold him into slavery in Egypt. They live to repent their rash deed and he lives to become the Pharaoh’s powerful right-hand man--and forgives them.

It’s all done in a high-spirited, good-natured, clowning sort of way that minimizes the message in favor of the entertainment value of a story in which all’s well that ends well.

We are introduced to Jacob’s family via a neon sign saying “Jacob and Sons;� Joseph’s brothers put a country-Western twang on “One More Angel in Heaven� when they pretend to their father that Joseph is dead; the brothers go for an Edith Piaf sound--complete with berets--when they sing about the famine in “Those Canaan Days� and they segue into rap before going down to Egypt to search for food.

The smooth direction by Robert Smyth, artistic director of Lamb’s, and the ease with which the company’s longtime members act off longtime associates, electrifies the Lamb’s usually high-level ensemble work. Rick Meads manages to bring some depth to Joseph, without losing the humor; Buckley is a hoot as the swiveling Elvis; Deborah Gilmour Smyth, graceful and compelling as the narrator; Christian Turner solid in an assortment of roles from Jacob to Potiphar; and Christine Nicholson as slinkily seductive a Potiphar’s wife as could be imagined.

If this show, with its remarkable breadth of musical styles, plays like a sunny exercise piece--composed by two virtuosos just for kicks--that is because that was what it originally was. Webber and Rice wrote it in 1968 for a music class only to extend the 20-minute piece into a full-length musical for Broadway in 1982.

Musical conductor Mary Kidd guides the ensemble fluidly over this varied terrain. Her efforts are complemented by Pamela Turner’s simple choreography and by Veronica Murphy Smith’s costumes, which are at their most comic in the Egyptian scenes, in which she blends the ponytails and short, flared skirt styles of the Elvis fifties with Sphinx appliques and Egyptian necklaces.

Buckley’s set design similarly accommodates the mad mix of styles, lowering a chandelier for Potiphar’s elegant home and providing parrots for the calypso number.

Nathan Peirson’s lighting keeps admirable pace with the swift changes. As a bonus, he throws in a life-size camel that Christian Turner rides Fred Flintstone-style by holding it around his waist.

Lamb’s has scaled down this “Joseph� from 12 brothers to no more than four at any one time, but it doesn’t matter. They use the power of suggestion so exceedingly well that one poor fellow in the front row on opening night shook slightly when he found Meads, as Joseph, pointing to him as if he were Benjamin and had just stolen his golden cup.

This patron, a real trouper, soon collected himself and took off his glasses in anticipation of Meads throwing him in jail.

And that says a lot about the power and the limitations of this show.

The Lamb’s Players Theatre is good enough to convince you that the theatrical conceit is real and they mean what they say. But the show and the company are so “nice� that there is no threat in their threats. In this setting, even jail becomes just another place for a good time. The result is a sensibility that may cushion the falls from grace nicely, but it also makes the final rewards of the ending less than triumphant.

“JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT�

By Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Director, Robert Smyth. Musical direction, Mary Kidd. Choreography, Pamela Turner. Sets, Mike Buckley. Costumes, Veronica Murphy Smith. Lighting, Nathan Peirson. Stage manager, Sonja Anderson. With Mike Buckley, Vanda Eggington, Michael Gangitano, Rick Meads, Christine Nicholson, Tim Peirson, Melanie Rey, Deborah Gilmour Smyth and Christian Turner. At 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday evenings, with Saturday matinees at 2 and one Sunday matinee Nov. 12. Through Nov. 12. Tickets are $13-17. At 500 Plaza Blvd., National City, 474-3385.