Joseph (Dutch)

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Opening night: December 12, 2008
Seen: December 15, 2008

Finally we got to see the Dutch stage-musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Longtime visitors of my blog know that we supported Freek in the race for the lead.

As I saw the show in London many times, with different leads, I was curious to see how the Dutch version would be. All in all, it was a great show. The public went crazy and at the end everyone was standing, clapping and dancing.

There are major differences compared to the UK show though. First, much more is happening on stage. The kids – in London they are ‘part of the set’ most of the time (sitting on stairs left and right from the stage), over here they are on stage, acting, dancing, joining in with the cast, which is a good thing.
A special note about the kids in the Dutch show: AWESOME voices, really really awesome (hats off!!)

Compared to the many props used here, you can almost call the London show minimalism. Some props add to the show, other props were superfluous, sometimes even annoying as they were distracting. It made me wonder why they opted for so many props, as I know the scene worked perfectly fine in London with less. People focus on the words and meaning of a scene if there are less things to distract them (IMHO).

When Lee – the UK Joseph – entered the stage for the first time I had goosebumps all over. He ‘floated’ from out of the air, through the mist, to land on stage. Totally different over here, I can’t even remember what happened, lol. I think one of the props was lifted and suddenly Freek was there, not really a so called ‘applause’ moment. Nevertheless, he was amazing! Confident, eager, playful as the young Joseph, wise as the elder Joseph, he had stage presence and made it clear that the right person had won the TV-search for Joseph. Oh and click the picture to see that Freek in a loincloth is as good as Lee Mead in a loincloth 😀

The cast worked their butts off! Lots of dancing, which would leave me breathless after 2 minutes, but they made it seem so easy. Renée van Wegberg is a wonderful narrator – also more active than the UK one. I guess the director planned to create a totally new stageshow, which he did.

Two things disappointed me a bit, yes, I know I am picky but that’s because I’ve seen so many shows, you can’t help but compare.
1) I didn’t cry at ‘Close every door’. I guess the prisoncell worked on my nerves; the ‘iron’ bars looked wobbly, I tried to concentrate on the song, but the swaying of the bars kept distracting me.
2) At the end Joseph rises on a platform. In London it happened towards the public, to the point where Lee was floating over the Stalls and he came very close to the people on the balcony, which made the public go crazy. Then the platform came down again, Lee got off and danced/sang along until the final applause. Not over here though. The platform can only rise vertically (I can understand that, it’s a travelling production and I assume a diagonally moving platform can cause problems in some theaters), but when the platform was at the top, the song ended and the curtain closed. It looked a bit weird, but oh well.

We heard that, after the show, Freek would come out to the front of the theatre and sign things, but we had no idea how long it would take for him to appear and there was a huge crowd, so we walked outside to the stagedoor and waited for the cast instead.

Apart from the narrator we met three castmembers who were also contestants in the TV-search for Joseph (but lost to Freek). They were so relaxed, not in a hurry at all, willing to talk to everyone who was waiting outside and pose for pictures. It was terribly cold, but a lot of fun. We never saw Freek (not sorry we missed the scrum) but meeting the people we did was a great way to end the evening.