It's not as intimate as the Chicago Shakespeare studio, or even the in-the-round Marriott, but the move away from the stadium-sized Chicago Theater and into the Royal George mainstage was definitely a wise one for the troupe. This earliest of the Webber and Rice collaborations is steeped in the playfulness of youth -- and nothing stifles play faster than too much money and too much planning.
Oh, the Pyramid and the Big Eye are back, but scaled down, as is Joseph's chariot and his entourage of children's choir. (Robert Pittenridge has not skimped on the yards and yards of metallic-gold fabric in the costumes, however.) Indeed, the almost-bare stage allows for more dancing room, and choreographer Ron Hutchins keeps the 19-member company leaping and kicking with the free abandon of children on a playground as they run us through a virtual history of pop footwork. And the 435-seat auditorium puts the action in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat close enough for us to distinguish faces, making for distinctive personalities as unlike the standard-issue touring-show robots as the young Webber and Rice's sly, sunny score was from their latter-day elephant ballets. Oh, Joseph, where did you go-go-go?
