The "farewell tour" of Hello, Dolly


Back to the index
Someone once said that old actors never die, they just go on tour. I might add that old actors who became super-stars because of a particular show go on tour in revivals of that show and, more often than not, only succeed in reminding us that you really can't go home again, even if that home is on the stage.

We've had plenty of examples in recent years of attempts by giants of the musical theatre to re-create the triumphs of their youth, usually with indifferent success: Rex Harrison as a doddering Henry Higgins, Yul Brynner as an over-the-hill King of Siam, and now Carol Channing as Dolly Gallagher Levi in a revival of the 1964 hit Hello Dolly, which played the Fox Theatre the first week in April. Fortunately, she's much more successful than some of her male contemporaries have been in recapturing the sizzle of her original performance.

I think this is partly because the character of Dolly has always been a woman of indeterminate age, and partly because Channing's great strength in the role was always her overwhelming charisma rather than talent as a singer or dancer. Charisma will only take you so far, however, and to my eyes Channing missed more often than she hit the target in this show. She seemed fragile, slow, and simply not up to the demand of holding up this massive star vehicle. In all fairness, though, this would appear to be minority opinion, judging by the reactions of the opening night house. Recalling the title number in the original production of Hello, Dolly, for example, theatrical historian Abe Laufe wrote: "Channing needed only to smile at the audience, wave her arms gracefully, and begin strutting to have the audience break into spontaneous applause." The description exactly matches the scene Tuesday at the Fox.

And, my misgivings about Channing aside, this really was a top-notch production of Hello, Dolly. Director Lee Roy Reams, who has a long history with both Channing and composer Jerry Herman, moved the show along at a snappy pace and did an amazingly efficient job of moving the chorus in and out of those spectacular Gower Champion production numbers. The sets (by Oliver Smith, who designed the 1964 original) and costumes (by Jonathan Bixby) were bright and colorful in an appropriately cartoony way. And Jerry Herman's score was as memorable, hummable, and downright charming as ever. Indeed, I'm coming around to the notion that Herman's score is really the main attraction of this show; Michael Stewart's book has only some of the wit and none of the wisdom of Thornton Wilder's original play.

Above all, Channing had an immensely talented supporting cast for this revival. As the grumpy miser Horace Vandergelder, Jay Garner showed a comic presence that reminded me a bit of Jonathan Winters, and he sang well enough. As Cornelius and Barnaby, the naive clerks looking for romance and adventure in New York, Michael DeVries and Cory English were completely convincing and a joy to watch. Florence Lacey was a warm and winning Irene Molloy and Lori Ann Mahl was a perky delight as her diminutive assistant Minnie Fay. Others in this uniformly fine cast included Christine DeVito, Monica M. Wemitt, and (as the pantomime horse) Sharon Moore and Michele Tibbits. Anyone who can move that gracefully inside a horse outfit deserves to be mentioned, in my book.

So, was this resurrection of Hello, Dolly worth seeing? Well, it depends. If, like me, you don't have strong feelings one way or the other, about either Dolly or Carol, you would have been wise to let this particular parade pass you by. On the other hand, those who had never seen the show before and enjoy this kind of big, star-oriented musical (or who just love the show itself) probably will never get a chance to see it done better. And for Carol Channing fans- as much of the opening night audience apparently was - it was a chance to cheer the old girl on one more time.

Besides, the kind of lovable, show-biz hokum represented by both Hello, Dolly and the gushy curtain speech of it's star - the latter peppered with local references which will probably change with every city on the tour - is slowly going the way of the passenger pigeon and long attention spans. Maybe we should appreciate it while there's still a bit of it left. Every year, the light of another giant of the musical stage goes out, and what has either my generation or the current one produced to replace them? Peter Townsend? Matthew Broderick? Madonna?!

Maybe the parade has passed all of us by.


Back to the index