'Hello, Dolly' at the Muny: You're lookin swell

Photo: Eric Woolsey

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The Jerry Herman/Michal Stewart musical “Hello, Dolly” turned fifty this year and The Muny is closing out their summer season with one hell of a birthday party.

The original “Hello, Dolly,” opened on Broadway in January, 1964, after some rocky out-of-town previews and several revisions. It ran for 2,844 performances, considerably raising the bar for the definition of “blockbuster.” It's not hard to see why. Herman's score is one of his best (not that he ever wrote a bad song anyway) and the book retains all the humanitarian humor of the Thornton Wilder play on which it's based.

Running nightly through this Sunday, August 17th, the Muny's “Hello, Dolly” (the company's seventh since 1968) is something of a blockbuster itself—a big, flashy, polished production of a good, old-fashioned Broadway musical comedy. It's the sort of thing the Muny has always done well, and it's a tremendously entertaining finale for a generally very strong season.

Photo: Phillip Hamer

A lot of actresses of a certain age have sashayed down that big staircase in the Act II Harmonia Gardens scene, beginning with the most famous Dolly of them all, Carol Channing. Fortunately there's plenty of room for interpretation in the character, and Beth Leavel uses it to make this Dolly entirely her own. Ms. Leavel's Dolly is big, bawdy, and a bit earthy—slightly reminiscent of Channing's performance in the 1995 revival but far more in control and completely endearing. Her big Act I closer, “Before the Parade Passes By,” was a real showstopper. Yes, it helped that the massive Muny stage was filled to the brim with singers, dancers, and the O'Fallon Township High School Marching Band, but the blitzkrieg charisma was all hers.

The wonderful supporting cast is headed by the remarkably fleet-footed Rob McClure and Jay Armstrong Johnson as Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, respectively; Mamie Parris as a warm and winning Irene Molloy; Eloise Kropp as the comically perky Minnie Fay; and John O'Hurley as the crotchety Horace Vendergelder. There's also fine work from Daniel Berryman as artist Ambrose Kemper, smitten with Vendergelder's comically lachrymose niece Ermengarde, and April Strelinger as Mrs. Rose and the hilariously coarse Ernestina.

Photo: Phillip Hamer

The choreography by Ralph Perkins appears to pay homage to Gower Champion's original work without simply copying it, and it's executed with impressive precision by the ensemble. The athletic “Waiters' Galop” was remarkable enough to be repeatedly interrupted by applause. Director Rob Ruggiero's sure hand makes the intimate scenes as precise and finely shaped as the big crowd numbers.

With pleasant temperatures and no rain in the forecast until Saturday, this is pretty much a perfect week to take in a pretty much perfect show at the Muny.