I Mean, It's Not NOT Bible Study...
Thinking about technicolor coats and brothers and comebacks
Nearly every summer of my life, I’ve been lucky to get to go up to a family cabin near Hebgen Lake, about 10 miles west of West Yellowstone, Montana. There were a things I considered traditions whenever we’d venture into town: 1) we’d buy Wilcoxson’s brand ice cream (which may very well be the best, creamiest ice cream ever), 2) we’d often get mediocre pizza and play old-school arcade video games at perhaps the worst-named pizza joint ever, THE GUSHER (ick), and 3) we’d go to the little small-town theater to watch musicals and old-timey melodramas (its name—THE PLAYMILL, due to the big old-fashioned mechanical windmill spinning outside the theater—is miles better than The Gusher, not that that’s saying much). About half of those summers, The Playmill, staffed mostly by BYU and BYU-Idaho1 theater hopefuls, would put on a charmingly smalltime production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
This explains why, last year, for my church calling, when I had to teach a Sunday School lesson on the story of Joseph of Egypt, I was petrified the whole time, worried I might get my King James Version and Playmill/Andrew Lloyd Webber versions scrambled up.
Teaching that lesson got the wheels spinning on some thoughts that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. This seems as good a place as any to work through them. (I promise there will be no fire and only trace amounts of brimstone.)
Let’s start with the title of the play—Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Solid marketing2: Lead with the main character’s name! Invoke fashion! The giddy, anachronistic fun of using a modern term like “technicolor” to describe a Biblical jacket! But the title only covers the very beginning of the story. In fact, the titular coat pretty much exits stage left early in Act One, not to be seen again until the big finale3. The rest of the story centers on other non-coat stuff, like integrity, long-suffering, redemption, reconciliation, and that Fast & Furious favorite: family.
As a writer, I have no choice but to explore other titles that get closer to the heart4 of Joseph’s full, post-technicolor experience, right? Let’s do this:
Joseph & The Power of Goodness (“Boring! Goodness doesn’t sell!” say the Netflix and HBO bigwigs who turned down feel-good megahit Ted Lasso.)
Joseph & Jealous Brothers & Wily Temptresses & Decent Elvis-Like Pharaohs5 (A real mouthful. This is like The Eternals6 when there are just too many characters and you decide to not care about any of them in the end.)
Joseph & The Unfortunate Inability To Not Tell Your Brothers About Dreams That They Might Hate (It’s got a ring to it!)
Maybe it makes more sense if, like with Harry Potter, Joseph’s story is broken up into 6-7 books. So the first one would be Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and then maybe… Joseph & The Hairy Ishmaelites, and then Joseph & Potiphar’s House, Joseph & The Baker & The Butler, Joseph & The Fourteen Cows….but we’ve already spent far too much of our precious word count on this tangential naming exercise. So…
Let’s cliff-note7 the major plot points:
Joseph is heavily favored by his father Jacob, best illustrated by the super-fancy coat of many colors he receives as a gift. His (many) brothers first resent and later hate him. Joseph does himself no favors by recounting dreams about anthropomorphically bowing sheafs of wheat that make it sound a lot like the whole family will bow down to him. We can cut him a little slack because he’s a teenager at the time and even the best teenagers have ding-dong moments. (Let me just say I’M SO GLAD THERE WAS NO TWITTER OR INSTAGRAM OR OLD TESTAMENT WRITERS TO DOCUMENT HOW I MAY HAVE CARRIED MYSELF AS A TEEN8.) His dreams were—SPOILER ALERT—fulfilled, in the end. But his retelling of them made him no friends9 around the house.
The brothers rashly conspire to kill him but “settle” on selling him to some Ishmaelites, then lie to their father that Joseph is dead, smearing the beloved and torn coat with blood. The Ishmaelites flip him to Potiphar, an officer for Pharaoh. Joseph ascends the food chain/corporate ladder in Potiphar’s house, becoming essentially Potiphar’s right hand man, his Scottie Pippen, his #2. Like way too many rock bands in the 70’s10, that means that the #1 guy’s wife is gonna get in the mix. In this case, Potiphar’s wife seduces Joseph, he resists, she falsely accuses him of seducing her. Potiphar, feeling betrayed, tosses Joseph in jail where Joseph, again, ascends the food chain/chain gang, earning the trust of the jailkeeper and ultimately becoming his right hand man, his Scottie Pippen, his #2. (No spouses get involved at this point.)
Pharaoh’s butler and baker are thrown in prison with Joseph. He interprets their dreams, much to the chagrin of the baker (you’re gonna die) and the joy of the butler (you’re gonna get out of here and return to work), who vows to put in a good word with Pharaoh about Joseph and then, whoops, doesn’t. Later, though, Pharaoh has some unsettling dreams about fat & skinny cows and suddenly the butler remembers, OH YEAH, there was this guy with me in the clink who could interpret dreams!
Joseph tells Pharaoh the dream is foretelling seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. He then (foreshadowing 20th century Mormons) proposes a rigorous food storage program. Unlike many (most?) 20th century Mormons, though, Pharaoh actually does the work to create the highly recommended food storage. To a tee. Once again, Joseph is promoted. His interpretation and plan play out and save the people when the famine hits (and hits hard).
Meanwhile, on the brink of starvation, Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy grain “that we may live and not die.” (In the play, this is where they sing the song “Those Canaan days we used to know, where have zey gone, where did zey go?”) The ten oldest brothers all go to Egypt without Benjamin, because Jacob is not interested in losing another Young/Favored Son.
When they get there, Joseph’s brothers don’t recognize him (a true glow-up, I assume, with the help of Pharaoh’s finest eye creams, etc), but he definitely recognizes them. He sets them up for a little test in which he speaks roughly to them, accuses them of being spies, puts them in prison for three days (which, let’s be honest, probably felt kinda good for him on the ol’ retribution scale, though it’s still nowhere near the living hell they put him through).
He tells them, “Unless you bring me your youngest brother (he knew it was Benjamin, who was one of the few brothers he had gotten along with all those years ago), you’ll be treated as spies.”11 The brothers leave Simeon (draw-er of the short stick, I assume) behind as human collateral and go back to fetch Benjamin.
(I know I said Cliffs Notes and this is not feeling all that abbreviated. But stick with me. It's necessary context. Plus, it’s a pretty good story. I mean, it was nominated for six Tony awards12. AND! It’s been showing for, like, 40 summers at the world-famous Playmill Theater!)
One key part, at this point, is an argument the brothers have, thinking that Joseph can’t understand them (because he’s been speaking to them via an interpreter) in their native tongue (probably Hebrew), where Reuben, all these years later is saying to the other brothers “I TOLD YOU WE SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE WHAT WE DID TO JOSEPH! This is happening because we did THAT.”
The Bible notes that Joseph turned and wept when he heard Reuben’s words. He’s probably not wholly convinced they’ve changed and wants to see Benjamin for more proof, but his tears indicate that he’s not past feeling for his family.
He gives them some corn and also the money back in their sacks, another sign that he feels for them and has some mercy in him. It’s not just a ploy to make them jump through some flaming hoops and let him see Benjamin again.
The brothers go back to Jacob and tell him the deal. He is understandably resistant: “Joseph is dead. Simeon is gone too and now you’re going to take BENJAMIN? It’s a ‘no’ for me, dawg13.” Reuben promises him—dramatically and perhaps only symbolically placing his own two sons’ lives in the now-multi-collateral mix—that Benjamin will return. Jacob still says no. (Meanwhile, Simeon wonders if he’s chopped liver, twiddling his thumbs in an Egyptian prison.)
Eventually, though, the family runs out of food and has no choice but to go back for more. And they all know what that means: Benjamin has to be with them, It’s right there in Genesis 43:3, “you shall not see my face except your brother be with you.” Judah promises Jacob that Benjamin will return. They know that they’ll all die if they don’t get some food. So they go. Benjamin included.
Once they get there, it’s one of the most famous parts of the story: the whole “Joseph plants some ‘stolen’ silver in Benjamin’s bag” scheme/scene happens and Joseph calls them out in righteous rage. The brothers are shocked when confronted and say, basically, “Check our bags and whoever stole from you can die and we will all serve you forever.” Imagine the weight of their hearts as the “stolen” goods are found in Benjamin’s sack.
The brothers, like Joseph’s dream, bow down, begging.
Judah’s speech is quite touching. He pleads, “take me instead of Benjamin” (or in the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s calypso “Benjamin is straighter ‘dan ‘da tall palm tree14”) It shows personal progression and a willingness to sacrifice. Judah is offering himself up in spite of the fact that, for all he knows, maybe Benjamin did steal it; he doesn’t know (yet) that Joseph planted it. He doesn’t turn on Benjamin, “You moron! You and your sticky fingers!” He offers himself up, knowing how much it matters to—remembering his promise to—Jacob. I kind of love that.
(We’re getting to the point, I promise.)
What’s Joseph gonna do?
All of this could be a bit loaded for some of us as fallible humans. We’re talking about forgiveness, one of the most beautiful and freeing principles there is. It also happens to be one of the harder ones to pull off in real life. I should be clear: forgiveness does not mean allowing toxic or hurtful or abusive people into our lives. Circumstances may vary and there may be situations where second or third chances make sense. But there are also situations where you have to take care of yourself and put yourself and those you love in a place of safety.
That said…
Joseph has seen true moral evolution in his brothers at this point. He lays his cards on the table, so to speak, revealing who he is (but not before excusing all the Egyptians from the room). He weeps in front of his brothers (they had to wonder, at least at first, is this a good thing or a bad thing, in light of the power dynamic here).
Joseph then says four stunning words: come near to me.
Of all the words we want to say to those who have wronged us, who have done us dirty, who have sold us out to the proverbial Ishmaelites, where do those four rank15?
How on earth do we find it in ourselves to say “Come near to me” to those who have wronged us but have shown real remorse? (Again not talking about ongoing abusive types.) Rather than perpetuating the wedge and holding on to grudges, how do we find this? How do we get there? How do we make ourselves believe in the high road? How do we let go of the animosity and rancor we’re clutching like toxic, grievance-filled security blankets? In Christianity, we talk about divine forgiveness with words like “his arms are stretched out still” but that’s the divine ideal. How do we stretch out these terribly mortal arms?
It’s not easy. If it were, we wouldn’t talk about it. 40something dudes wouldn’t write long essays about it. It would just happen. But it’s not easy. Sometimes I don’t know which is harder: mustering up the humility to say Sorry or tamping down the righteous indignation to let forgiveness in.
The quiet secret of forgiveness, though, is this: it brings two-way peace. Yes, it offers peace to the forgiven. But it also lightens the heart of the forgiver.
Maybe you’re beating yourself up over how you’re personally struggling to forgive somebody in light of reading about how Joseph did. I know I do (remember Bobby Knight?). Remember, though: Joseph’s moment of clarity and the forgiveness in his heart did not occur in the pit where his brothers put him, nor on the path to who-knows-where with the Ishmaelites. He didn't find forgiveness in his heart in Potiphar’s house either, or in the prison, or even when his interpretation of the dreams proved to be true16…it took YEARS. I don’t say that to excuse myself from the need to forgive nor to diminish how much it cankers our own souls to hang on to grudges/hard feelings, just to say that THINGS TAKE TIME. It’s ok if we don’t arrive there immediately. Joseph certainly didn’t.
Ultimately, “hatred always fails and bitterness always destroys.”17 As much the unforgiven as the nonforgiver.
So, back to the title of the old Broadway/Playmill play and my loosely Harry Potter-inspired exercise. Here are some better titles I landed on:
Joseph & The Long Path To Forgiveness
Joseph & Choosing Mercy Over Vengeance
Joseph & Not Having To Say I Told You So About The Dreams
Like a good wine and food pairing, I like to pair the quote “Hatred always fails and bitterness always destroys” with another favorite quote “it is not so much the one who is not loved as the one who DOES NOT love who is impoverished.”18
Forgiveness and mercy, it seems, are gifts that, when giving others, we also give ourselves.
And now, one last thought on forgiveness that gave me pause, courtesy of Cormac McCarthy (via my friend Peter Himmelman).
“Mercy is in the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and mass grief.
Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness.
There is only you.”
Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger
It’ll always be Ricks College to me. Just like:
-The Delta Center
-Ron Artest
-Jeff Gillooly
-HBO Max
-Cat Stevens (sorry, this one is probably culturally insensitive)
-Paul Hewson
-David Evans
-Kris Kringle
-Benedictionary Cumberbunbatchelorpad
Best-selling author JK Rowling employed a similar title construction for her Harry Potter books: MAIN CHARACTER NAME + INTERESTING CONFLICT like….The Sorcerer’s Stone, The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Order of the Phoenix, The Deathly Hallows. From a sales standpoint alone, you could make the argument that she set some best practices for titling stories.
Chekhov’s Technicolor Dreamcoat.
My cousin Sam played the Elvis-ish pharaoh one summer at The Playmill and crushed it. Every time I’ve seen the play, I’ve walked away thinking, “the guy who plays Pharaoh got the cush gig.” It’s a built-in scene stealer. And you’re only onstage for, what, 8 scenery-chewing minutes? Get in. Steal show. Get out.
Seriously. How many of these characters can you name without googling? I can get the main duo: Sersi and Ikaris. After that, it’s like “the kid” and “whoever Angelina Jolie is” and “Paper Boi from Atlanta.”
Did you know it’s Cliffs Notes with an -s at the end of Cliff? It is.
What are the chances I say the same thing about Substack in 10 years, cringing at my posts about U2 and depression and gun control?
Maybe Joseph was like one of those reality show contestants who, in their first confessional interview, make sure everyone knows, “I’m not here to make friends.”
I would list bands where the lead singer’s significant other ended up with someone else in the band here, but I’m already on my ninth footnote in nine paragraphs. Just take my word on it.
Menacing Thumb Across Throat gesture. Or maybe Handcuffs Behind The Back gesture.
It won zero Tony awards.
Not Jacob’s exact words, at least as far as the Bible translation we currently have.
Andrew Lloyd Webber was really leaning into the dramatic accents for this play.
Somewhere far below “Screw you”, that’s for sure.
The fact that he never says “TOLD YOU SO” or “SCOREBOARD!” is a tribute to his growth too.
This came from a talk I’m too lazy to google. But it was in the 80’s. And it was by Gordon B. Hinckley, who eventually became the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons, as I referenced earlier) but wasn’t the President of the church when he gave this talk.
From Lowell Bennion’s book The Things That Matter Most.