The touring production of "Hello, Dolly!" is weighted with concepts considered cringe material to a 21st century woman. But it embraces such a motherlode of good melodies you come out loving the show anyway.
The revival of the 1964 musical is at Artis—Naples through Sunday, Feb. 9, and it's a blues-banishing blast of color, comedy and music. "Hello, Dolly" is so infectious the musical's creators, late songwriter Jerry Herman and librettist Michael Stewart, had to build more shelves for all its Tony awards: 10 for the original, four for the revival. The touring company in Naples this week re-earned them with its polished Tuesday performance.
This production has been given racing tires with richly toned Santo Loquasto costumes. The smartly garbed ensemble in "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" look as if the tailors of their single-color suits had broken into Lilly Pulitzer's crayon drawer, to sumptuous effect. This production also has synthesizer assistance to ramp up its orchestra sound, giving it the heft of a string section from the first note of the overture on.
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Best of all, it has Carolee Carmello in the title role. Carol Channing may always be the purist's Dolly Levi. But Carmello does it brassy justice with a Brooklyn accent, a smattering of gravel in her powerful voice and a comic instinct that allows her to break the fourth wall and dance a little private jig for the audience.
We did wonder why John Bolton — not the one from D.C. — as Horace Vandergelder, the prize on Dolly's to-do list, and Colin LeMoine, as his future son-in-law, would have hair cuts close to biblical length while most of the men around them are close-shorn.
But it doesn't keep Bolton from creating a convincingly irascible, and hopelessly outwitted, foil for Dolly. His comic paean to finding a partner, "It Takes a Woman" ("It takes a woman, all powdered and pink/to joyously clean out the drain in the sink") gives us a clear view of how tunnel-visioned Horace is.
However, his hardware store has made him Yonkers' "half-a-millionaire," and Dolly is equally tunnel visioned, by today's standards, in setting her cap for the man who can keep her comfortably in style. In other words, they're perfect for each other.
Not that Horace will figure that out until Dolly has fought off the marriage he didn't propose and he's fired the two clerks — for whom Dolly is quietly playing Cupid — who trailed him into New York. And, oh yes, he's found himself in the city lockup after a fracas at the toney Harmonia Gardens, where he was to meet yet another prospective Mrs. Vandergelder.
Even before that, the story runs a merry chase around a millinery shop where Vandergelder suspects the milliner he's been courting has hidden men. Dinner at the swank Harmonia Gardens turns into another farce as the clerks spend an evening dodging their dyspeptic boss. It ends with a courtroom dragnet for the entire restaurantful of party goers. This is no reality show. But it's great fun.
Some of the high points:
- Just about every song. "Hello, Dolly," "It Only Takes a Moment" and "Elegance" have all edged their way into the Great American Songbook. (An aside: Herman wasn't about to waste a good tune; if "It Takes a Woman" sounds familiar, that's because he recycled it into the much more salable "We Need a Little Christmas" for "Mame" two years later.)
- The ensemble pieces, which have Gower Champion's broad choreography with David Chase's tableau-like arrangements. The waiters' prep dance, done with snapping napkins and wildly careening trays of food and wine, is so beautifully athletic it threatens to steal the show from Dolly's imminent grand entrance.
- Of course, the "Hello, Dolly" ensemble, a theater-filling, grand and joyous scene, well worth its encore.
- The revolving set pieces that bring the action close to the audience and employ painted backdrops with a stereopticon quality to evoke 19th century New York, Grand Central Station and Yonkers neighborhoods.
- The work of supporting stars such as Analisa Leaming, as the milliner Irene Malloy, who is Dolly's unwitting rival for Horace. She has a luscious soprano voice in addition to Gibson Girl good looks. Both Daniel Beeman and Sean Burns, as Horace's rebelling clerks, have a native sense of physical comedy as well as solid voices. In the Tuesday performance, Hillary Porter stood in as Irene's timid assistant, Minnie Fay, and owned the role.
This musical once held the Broadway longevity record, and it's been too long since a fresh-pressed, sparkling revival. We, too, hope Dolly will never go away again.
Harriet Howard Heithaus covers arts and entertainment for the Naples Daily News/naplesnews.com. Reach her at 239-213-6091.
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Feb. 6-7; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9
Where: Hayes Hall, Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples
Admission: $80-$135
To buy: artisnaples.org or 239-597-1900
Something else: A reminder that there are new purse size restrictions; dimensions — length, width and depth — must total no more than 21 inches; those with larger bags may be asked to return them to their vehicles
https://www.naplesnews.com/story/life/2020/02/06/revival-1964-musical-artis-naples-through-sunday-feb-9-and-its-blast-color-comedy-and-music-guarante/4657813002/
2020-02-06 14:42:00Z
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