DreamWorks’ musical animation The Prince of Egypt was praised to high heaven when it was released in 1998. Combining the Old Testament story of Moses, Ramses and the liberation of the Israelites with magnificent artwork, an Oscar-winning song and a star cast, the film produced box-office gold.
The Prince of Egypt is a stage musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and a book by Philip LaZebnik. Based on the Book of Exodus with songs from the DreamWorks Animation 1998 film of the same name, the musical follows the life of Moses from being a prince of Egypt to his ultimate destiny of leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt.
Starting from a workshop in 2015, the first production was mounted in 2017 in California.
In Ancient Egypt, more than 3,000 years ago, the Hebrews labor, desperate for deliverance from slavery. Egyptian soldiers, under orders to kill all Hebrew firstborn boys, snatch babies from their mothers' arms.
Yocheved sings a last lullaby to her newborn, then places him in a basket and sets it out on the Nile, where it drifts into the Queen's pleasure garden.
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18 years later, high-spirited teenagers Moses and Ramses race their chariots, destroying the marketplace and part of a temple, infuriating the high priest, Hotep ("Faster"). Afterwards, their father Pharaoh Seti I berates Ramses for his irresponsibility ("One Weak Link") and tells him he must marry the arrogant and ambitious Princess Nefertari as a political alliance.
Some months later, Seti returns from a desert campaign against the rebellious Midianites ("Seti's Return"). To celebrate his victory, Seti gives Ramses a captured Midianite girl as his slave, Tzipporah ("Dance to the Day").
Later that evening, Tzipporah breaks away from her guards and winds up in Moses' bedchamber, where she defiantly says she will always be free and escapes. Moses pursues Tzipporah into the marketplace, where he runs into Miriam, his real sister, and his brother Aaron.
Miriam tells him the truth about his birth, and when he refuses to believe her, she sings him their mother's lullaby, which stirs old memories in Moses. Distraught, he races back to the palace, but cannot escape his memories. He finds artwork of the Hebrew babies being drowned by Seti's men, and the Pharaoh sadly confirms that he had to make the sacrifice for the good of Egypt.
The next day, Moses is with Ramses and Hotep at the temple worksite. He attempts to act as if nothing has changed, but when he sees a guard whipping a Hebrew slave, he attacks the guard and accidentally kills him.
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Hotep proclaims that Moses must be punished. Moses runs off and Ramses pursues him, saying he will hide the truth of Moses' identity. Moses says that isn't possible and runs into the desert ("Make It Right").
As the time passes, Moses and Ramses miss one another ("Faster" reprise), but Moses has become a shepherd and fallen in love with Tzipporah, Jethro's daughter, whom he has re-encountered ("Never in a Million Years").
Then one day, following a stray sheep, Moses encounters a miraculous burning bush and hears the voice of God commanding him to return to Egypt and free his people.
Moses returns to Egypt ("Return to Egypt") and confronts Ramses, now married to Nefertari and the father of a son, Amun-her-khepeshef. Ramses agrees to free the Hebrews if Moses will come back to court as his adviser ("Always On Your Side"), and the exultant Moses informs the Hebrews they have been freed ("Simcha"), but Hotep then appears, holding a royal decree that doubles the Hebrews' work load.
Under the influence of Hotep and Nefertari, Ramses has broken his promise to Moses. Moses finds Ramses sailing down the Nile on the royal barge, and warns him that if he does not keep his promise, Egypt will suffer. When Ramses refuses, the waters of the Nile are turned to blood, and further plagues of disease, fire and darkness ravage Egypt.
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Urged by Tuya to make peace with his brother, Moses pleads with Ramses to free the Hebrews, but Ramses will not relent ("The Plagues"). The final plague occurs, the death of the Egyptian first born, including Ramses' and Nefertari's son.
Moses is devastated by the death and destruction he has caused ("For the Rest of My Life"). Ramses tells Moses that the Hebrews can go, while Nefertari grieves over the dead body of their son ("Heartless").
Moses tells Miriam the Hebrews are finally free, but he is too distraught to lead them. Moses leads the Hebrews to the edge of the Red Sea, where Tzipporah mourns the fact that she will never see her family again ("Never in a Million Years" reprise).
Suddenly, the Egyptian army appears in the distance, led by Ramses and Hotep, and the Hebrews appear to be trapped. Needing a miracle to escape, Moses holds out his hand and the Red Sea parts. The Hebrews pass through the Red Sea while Moses remains to offer himself as a ransom to Ramses for the Hebrews' freedom.
Hotep urges Ramses to kill Moses, but Ramses refuses, saying there has been too much death, and he will be the weak link, breaking the chain of destruction. Moses and Ramses embrace, brothers once again, and then Moses and Tzipporah follow the Hebrews.
Hotep commandeers the Egyptian army and pursues Moses and the Hebrews into the parted Red Sea, but once the Hebrews have reached safety, the waters fall back, drowning Hotep and the soldiers.
The musical had its international premiere in a Danish production on April 6, 2018, at the Fredericia Teater in Fredericia, followed by a summer season at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen 2019.
Fredericia Theater believed that for a larger, older and more visited stage, something new and grander was more fitting, and so they reinvented the visual design and created new dance choreographies.
A significantly revised new version opened at the Dominion Theatre in London's West End for a limited 39-week engagement from February 5 to October 31, 2020, with an opening night on February 25, directed by Scott Schwartz, choreographed by Sean Cheesman, and a design team including Kevin Depinet, Ann Hould-Ward, Mike Billings, Gareth Owen, Jon Driscoll, and Chris Fisher.
The West End version featured new costumes by Hould-Ward, sets by Depinet, projections by Driscoll, illusions by Fisher, sound by Owens, and hair/wigs/makeup by Campbell young Associates, as well as a world premiere song.
The cast of 38 was headed by Luke Brady (Moses), Liam Tamne (Ramses), Christine Allado (Tzipporah), Alexia Khadime (Miriam), Joe Dixon (Seti), Debbie Kurup (Queen Tuya), Gary Wilmot (Jethro), Mercedesz Csampai (Yocheved), Adam Pearce (Hotep), Tanisha Spring (Nefertari) and Silas Wyatt-Barke (Aaron).
The production was forced to close on March 17 after just six weeks, due to the government-mandated closure of all theatres in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Unlike the film, the West End production received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances, score and orchestrations but criticized the costume design and script.
Anthony Walker-Cook of BroadwayWorld praised the performances of Brady, Tamme and the ensemble, but felt the show was more like a pantomime than a Biblical epic.
Alex Wood of WhatsOnStage was critical of the changes made to translate the film's screenplay for the stage, saying that "by adding a few extra scenes and dialogue, he makes the Pharaoh's power far less absolute, creating a murky world where pragmatic decisions have to be taken to appease warring families craving Egypt's throne ... Thankfully LaZebnik lets the pace quicken in the second act as the plagues set in and Moses battles to free his people."
Arifa Akbar of The Guardian felt mixed about Scott Schwartz's directing choices, calling the production "stuffed full of imagination but it is so excessive and outsized that it overwhelms the emotional drama, sucking away any intimacy between the actors".
This stage adaptation, however, does not come off to the same spectacular effect, which is a puzzle in itself given that it has been in the making for years and is sprinkled with so much of the same stardust. It is produced by DreamWorks Theatricals, with Stephen Schwartz’s lyrics (he has written 10 new songs that sit alongside his five original numbers) and an impossibly lavish set.
The staging, which is multi-layered and at times stretching out into the auditorium, might ironically be part of its problem. Scott Schwartz’s production is stuffed full of imagination but it is so excessive and outsized that it overwhelms the emotional drama, sucking away any intimacy between the actors.
It has a thumping, big stadium feel in its sound and visual effects, and the best known songs - When You Believe and Deliver Us - still stand out, but almost all the others are drowned out by the scale of everything else on stage, while humorous lines from Philip LaZebnik’s book that worked well in the film fall flat.
Liam Tamne as Ramses and Luke Brady as Moses work hard to make the songs and book affecting against the glut of pageantry on stage. Brady’s heroic performance gains some emotional traction by the second half, but characterisation overall seems one-note: Moses’s wife Tzipporah (Christine Allado) enters as a slave girl with Walk Like an Egyptian dance moves; Ramses’s father Seti (Joe Dixon) projects a loud authoritarianism; Hotep, the high priest to the Pharaohs (Adam Pearce), looks like a Bond villain, and other cast members seem featureless.
Kevin Depinet’s set design and Jon Driscoll’s projections create an ancient Egypt by way of Las Vegas with snazzy projections of pyramids, hieroglyphics and big, cheesy exoticism alongside Ann Hould-Ward’s predominantly white, gold and glitter costumes.
The Prince of Egypt is at its strongest as a dance production with beautiful visual formations through bodywork when chariots, wells or rolling desert sands are created by groups of dancers. It is in Sean Cheesman’s astonishing choreography that this musical feels at its most alive.
The careening carts and horses are one of the most amazing examples of stagecraft and choreography in recent memory. The rigs are made up entirely of dancers upon whom the privileged princes sit, capes blowing in the wind as they carelessly wreak havoc on the marketplace and reduce a temple to rubble in their quest for a good time. We can thank choreographer Sean Cheesman for this rapturous ride.
Often, the ensemble is used to recreate blowing sand, a river of water, the burning bush, or a sea of blood. This is all incredibly inventive and must have looked stunning in person.
There’ a really interesting choice made with All I Ever Wanted; Moses isn’t walking around singing it. Instead, it’s a song playing in the back of his head wherever he goes. And even as he tries to convince himself that he is “a son of a proud history”, his facial expressions are filled with doubt, confusion, and anxiety.
It’s a big wake-up moment for Moses, who has gone from very prideful and smug to feeling lower than low. He doesn’t see much to be proud of about himself in this moment, and this is the song where he builds his pride back up and becomes a better person.
In translation: no one man (“a single thread”) can see his purpose when he’s buried in a sea of people (“the pattern of the grand design”). It’s a great point made for Moses, who has had trouble finding his worth. He needs to find himself in order to find out what his purpose is.
And much of the montage of Through Heaven’s Eyes involves him both finding himself, and falling in love with Tzipporah. It’s interesting how much the lyrics reflect Moses and his journey in particular.
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Moses’ big struggle during the song is rejoining the dance of life. At first, he’s invited to dance with the rest of Tzipporah’s people, and neglects to join, instead standing off to the side and watching the others dance wistfully.
But just like one can’t avoid life, Moses can’t avoid the dance. So when Tzipporah drags him into it, he’s done resisting the pull. There’s a double-edged symbolism here: Moses joins both the dance shown in the song, and also rejoins the metaphorical dance of life.
Even though he doesn’t know what’s ahead, he learns to embrace his life and become a man that he can be proud of.
The Plagues is a very chilling song. The movie does not shy away from showing the damages on both sides as the conflict between Moses and Ramses heats up.
Especially chilling is the phrase “until you break, until you yield”. This is all about getting Ramses to break. Ramses’ stubbornness is why the Hebrews are not free, and God wants to break the haughty (aka Ramses) by tearing apart Egypt.
One of the more interesting aspects of the song is showing Moses’ internal conflict. He’s torn between this place that was once his home (and the brother he once had), and the freedom of his people, his family.
Moses is caught between a rock and a hard place, basically. He’s also furious with his brother, and how so many innocent people have suffered because of his “stubbornness and pride”. Moses isn’t pleading anymore; he’s demanding that Ramses let his people go.
He could’ve even ended all those plagues ruining his people’s lives. “Never mind how high the cost may grow”. That’s just callous.
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