A little history about an historical show: Hello, Dolly! opens January 16, 1964 starring Carol Channing. Later that year it wins 10 Tony Awards. In 1967 Pearl Bailey becomes the sixth Dolly and a young Morgan Freeman is in the cast. In 1970, Ethel Merman belts out the roll – the show was originally meant for her. In 1970, after 2,844 performances, the show closes. And then guess what happened? In 1994, the national tour of the revival kicks off in Denver. In 2017, Bette Midler takes the lead and soon after, there are four more Tony wins. October 5, 2018, a new, national tour begins and stars Betty Buckley which returns to the Buell on March 27, 2019, running through April 7.
Hello, Dolly! will appeal to a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons. See the show if you:
- want to have a little escape from life’s trials and tribulations, with a smile stuck on your face for a couple of hours.
- are a smart business person who will respect Dolly’s way of creating opportunities for the benefit of herself and others.
- are at a point in your life where you get, all too well, the idea of needing to create the life you really want “before the parade passes by.”
- loved Betty Buckley in Eight Is Enough for her calm, peaceful demeanor amid the chaos.
- love the idea of more proper times, with a gentleman tipping his hat (and not a baseball hat!), ladies carrying parasols (avoiding sun damage, hello!), good manners and things made of quality materials.
- like us, you just saw In & Out on Netflix and recognized Lewis J. Standlen who plays Horace Vandergelder in Dolly.
Those are just six reasons that we could certainly relate to. Beyond that, though, Hello, Dolly! is just fun. Like a sitcom, the storyline is convoluted with twists and turns and happy resolutions tied up in a pretty satin bow. But because the underlying theme is that Dolly inserts herself into everyone’s business, connecting this dot to that dot to another dot until things happen the way she thinks they should, it’s not fully predictable. We know, almost from the start, that Dolly’s end goal is to marry a certain “half-millionaire,” a big step for the widow. Yet we don’t quite know how she’ll make one thing lead to another, to another so that everyone ends up with what they want.
The sets are creative, the costumes are gorgeous, the comedy is trite, and the dancing is graceful. One stand-out scene is in a posh restaurant where the waiters leap, spin, arch and dance their way through a busy evening’s service. I couldn’t help but think of the scene in Beauty and Beast where the dinner itself puts on a lavish show.
Fans of Barbara Streisand’s movie roll in Hello, Dolly! may be expecting a younger star but Betty Buckley carries on the grand tradition of mature women in this row. I loved her “been there, done that, know better” manner. Her dinner scene was a treat, with the entire Buell audience silent as she sucked gravy off the last remnants of turkey drumstick! But her warm smile, twinkling eyes, and spot-on facial expressions made her the glue holding the show together (and would, even if she hadn’t been the main star). Hurry to see Hello, Dolly! because, although it runs through April 7, Buckley will be going on vacation (because she can) after April 1. I’m sure the show will go on just fine with a different actress but it sure is a treat to see her, a living doll(y).
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