TR_Wolf
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Butler/Baker... "doing their thing" ?What does the narrator mean when she says the Butler and Baker were jailed for "doing their thing"? In the DVD she does a mischievous move and the butler/baker give her a knowing look (which was done on the UK Tour too), plus both look quite camp and are played by gay actors...
..were the butler and baker gay? If not, can someone tell me what this "doing their thing" line was about?
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music is my life!!!
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i think it's that b/c they were servants to pharaoh that they were doing they're job. i think it's meant to give the impression that these guys were kinda innocent and that pahraoh is really scary and doesn't take any prisoners?
who knows? 
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Sam I Am
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I never took it that way, but it is a good twist to it. I always took it as they were doing what they do on there jobs. The Butler doing Butler things and the Baker Baking things.
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music is my life!!!
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i remember when i first saw it i thought they were just doing their job... i just thought - "hang on, what if...?"
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Trevor
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I think ALW just needed something to rhyme with "King". I think you read far into it.
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music is my life!!!
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i think.... you're probably right...
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Eponine93
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Re: Butler/Baker... "doing their thing" ? | TR_Wolf wrote: | What does the narrator mean when she says the Butler and Baker were jailed for "doing their thing"? In the DVD she does a mischievous move and the butler/baker give her a knowing look (which was done on the UK Tour too), plus both look quite camp and are played by gay actors...
..were the butler and baker gay? If not, can someone tell me what this "doing their thing" line was about? |
Well, our Baker and our Butler were both girls...
I think it really depends on interpretation. I'm sure this interpratition is not popular in youth theatres.
However, at the same time, I don't think Joseph is deep enough to go into implied romance. I mean, there isn't even any stated romance (beside Jacob and Joseph's mother, which doesn't count because it's old people love )
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TR_Wolf
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| trevorsanderson wrote: | | I think ALW just needed something to rhyme with "King". I think you read far into it. |
ALW is a much better composer to just find any old thing to rhyme with a word, especially if it makes no sense.
And as for the other posters, the idea that Pharoah would employ a butler and baker, and then imprison them for being a butler and being a baker is kind of silly :/
As for the youth group thing... sexuality shouldnt affect whether youthes perform a show or not, its natural.
And finally, as for the "we had girls as ours" thing... that doesnt really matter in regards to sexuality... you could have a girl play Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror and she'd still have to be bisexual... if you get my point.
Oh and to the person who said "You're looking too deep into it", so what? Im speculating, there's nothing wrong with that, and unless you know the definative answer, you cant really judge!
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Eponine93
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| TR_Wolf wrote: | | trevorsanderson wrote: | | I think ALW just needed something to rhyme with "King". I think you read far into it. |
ALW is a much better composer to just find any old thing to rhyme with a word, especially if it makes no sense. |
I hope you guys mean Tim Rice.
Remember, they were REALLY young when they wrote this, both of them. Honestly, if I knew nothing about either of them except for Joseph and someone told me that ALW wrote Phantom, Evita, ect. and Tim Rice wrote the lyrics for Chess and whatever else he's done (it's not coming to me at the moment) I would be shocked. I don't think it reflects their best skills. It has plenty of heart, but not much else.
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Salome
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| trevorsanderson wrote: | | I think ALW just needed something to rhyme with "King". I think you read far into it. |
you mean Tim Rice. Webber only did the music.
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Beagle On Stage
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I don't think the Bible specifies what crime(s) the Baker and Butler were in prison for. As far as the lyric in the musical, I have no doubt that not only did it conveniently rhyme with "King," it was just a nonspecific way of saying that they were imprisoned for some crime not relevant to the story.
That said, my director did add the touch of gay that the script does seem to suggest. My character was not only a butler, but also the Pharaoh's gay bedservant after hours. (At first, the lyric was even changed to "one was a butler, and more at bedtime" until the administration decided it was too adult.) For anyone who hasn't seen the picture, I went around in a gold-and-white loincloth which showed plenty of leg and a contemporary tux vest and bow tie with a lacey arm-showing top previously worn by Belle in "Beauty and the Beast." It was completed with a cute Cinderella-type hair covering, and I carried a featherduster around flirtatiously. I flashed the audience a bunch of leg at my entrance, got in a bitch fight with the Narrator over her microphone when it came time for my verse, went into the audience and picked out a front-row gentleman to vamp, got felt up by Joseph, and was later shown with the Pharaoh in his private bedchamber. The director was under the impression that this is all commonly done in productions of "Dreamcoat," but I had never heard of it before. Even so, it was an adorable element of the show and quite s-e-xy.
I'm not going to lie, the Baker's character had no meat to it and looked especially blah next to mine.
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Eponine93
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^OMG. Bravo to your director! I am laughing my a** off right now at his creativity. That's HILARIOUS! Yay for creativity! What other productions did your director do? How did he interpret them?
I can't help feel a little bit sorry for the kid playing the Baker though.
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Trevor
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| Salome wrote: | | trevorsanderson wrote: | | I think ALW just needed something to rhyme with "King". I think you read far into it. |
you mean Tim Rice. Webber only did the music. |
Oh right. Silly me. My mistake.
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Beagle On Stage
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| Eponine93 wrote: | ^OMG. Bravo to your director! I am laughing my a** off right now at his creativity. That's HILARIOUS! Yay for creativity! What other productions did your director do? How did he interpret them?
I can't help feel a little bit sorry for the kid playing the Baker though. |
That director was only with us for two years, the only other musical we had him for was "Beauty and the Beast," which was pretty straightforward in its interpretation. He's done a lot of professional performing himself and has been a brother in "Dreamcoat" like three times, so this particular show is special to him and he had a lot of ideas for it.
It DID suck to be the guy playing the Baker. I'm known at the school for doing the s-e-xy role in each musical - it's reached a point where the crowd anticipates my role and watches for the moment when I do my now-trademark shimmy and "stripper motion," and then they scream until halfway into the scene change. I actually get applause for coming onstage. That's all fine...but that guy was brand new to theatre and was still in the early stages of finding a stage presence, and having to compete with that must have really sucked and left him feeling like he couldn't make an impact. This sounds so conceited coming from me, but that really wasn't a fair first assignment for him.
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Dreamcoat
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No no noI don't mean to offend anyone but this is by far the silliest theory I've ever heard.
The show was originally meant for audiences of children, who obviously wouldn't have understood that if it were intended that way. Nor would it have been there for the parents, who after all would have been primarily concerned with good family entertainment.
In light of that, I think the only possible interpretation is that "doing their thing" simply meant "in the course of their job". Meaning they had done things during their service to Pharaoh that had displeased him.
It's nice to try to reinterpret things with a 21st century sensibility but seriously I can't think of a reason in the world why a starting writing/composing duo in Britain in the 60's could have ever been daffy enough to add such innuendo in a musical written for children and that if memory serves was even performed in churches at one time.
In other words, gimme a break! 
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Beagle On Stage
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It's true that it certainly is meant only that they have somehow displeased the Pharaoh, but it's not important how...and that the inital post here put a little too much analysis into it. And yes, it would be ridiculous to try to stage the show to imply that the Baker and Butler are gay lovers. But I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that, so you don't have to take it so seriously. Even if it were happening, the show has already been bastardized beyond recognition anyway.
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Eponine93
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Joseph still is performed at churches. However, some churches are really liberal.
I think overall, it depends on your group and your director and actor's abilities. If it's done right, it could turn out really funny. If it's not, it could turn out really stupid-looking. If it's done at a church, especially one with strict priests and parishoners.... well, I don't want to be there when the priest sees it.
I doubt it was intended to be written with the gay twist, but I'm totally open to it being performed like that.
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Dreamcoat
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The musical is basically about Joseph's journey, and none of the secondary characters are given much detail except for what's written in the songs... the baker and the butler aren't even secondary characters, they are more like bit roles (although they can be performed by actors who play other roles but do not appear in "Go Go Joseph").
The bottom line is, any kind of "excentricity" whether or not it involved sexual orientation would be too distracting and take away focus from Joseph's plight -- which is what holds the story together.
Add to that the simple fact that this could, if someone were to actually try to perform it that way, be considered very offensive by gay and lesbian people in the audience, and I honestly don't think of any good reason to go this way.
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Luc
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I think you guys are just looking way too deep into this one line! 
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Dreamcoat
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| musikal_geek wrote: | | I think you guys are just looking way too deep into this one line! |
You're probably right about that!!
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Beagle On Stage
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| Dreamcoat wrote: | The musical is basically about Joseph's journey, and none of the secondary characters are given much detail except for what's written in the songs... the baker and the butler aren't even secondary characters, they are more like bit roles (although they can be performed by actors who play other roles but do not appear in "Go Go Joseph").
The bottom line is, any kind of "excentricity" whether or not it involved sexual orientation would be too distracting and take away focus from Joseph's plight -- which is what holds the story together. |
It sounds like you're saying all of the secondary roles should just be "thrown away," for lack of a better term, because otherwise they might take attention away from Joseph. That's not a practical concept. "Dreamcoat" relies on strong performers who will own the "bit parts" like Mrs. Potiphar, the Butler, and the Pharaoh, because if the various cameos aren't memorable, you've got a boring hour and a half of nothing happening but the Narrator and Joseph wandering across the stage over and over.
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Dreamcoat
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| Beagle On Stage wrote: | | Dreamcoat wrote: | The musical is basically about Joseph's journey, and none of the secondary characters are given much detail except for what's written in the songs... the baker and the butler aren't even secondary characters, they are more like bit roles (although they can be performed by actors who play other roles but do not appear in "Go Go Joseph").
The bottom line is, any kind of "excentricity" whether or not it involved sexual orientation would be too distracting and take away focus from Joseph's plight -- which is what holds the story together. |
It sounds like you're saying all of the secondary roles should just be "thrown away," for lack of a better term, because otherwise they might take attention away from Joseph. That's not a practical concept. "Dreamcoat" relies on strong performers who will own the "bit parts" like Mrs. Potiphar, the Butler, and the Pharaoh, because if the various cameos aren't memorable, you've got a boring hour and a half of nothing happening but the Narrator and Joseph wandering across the stage over and over. |
Not at all, I certainly didn't mean secondary roles should be "thrown away". They can be colorful but without becoming anything too exentric. And the musical is still mostly Joseph and the Narrator, none of the other characters spend too much time on stage for the whole show.
I don't think a musical like Joseph, with a half-decent production, could ever be considered "boring" because it focuses mostly on one character and the narrator who tells much of the story, the songs are wonderfully entertaining and there's a lot of stuff going and happening pretty quickly, too. 
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