Here is my Tuesday December 28 suntimes.com and Wednesday December 29 Chicago Sun-Times review of the Monday December 27, 2011 performance of Light Opera Works' new production of Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart's Hello, Dolly! at Cahn Auditoroum, 600 Emerson Street, in Evanston, Illinois.
Mary Robin Roth as Dolly Levi (née Gallagher)
An enlightened ‘Dolly’ from Light Opera Works
BY ANDREW PATNER
RECOMMENDED
Six more performances through January 2, 2011
Officially, Hello, Dolly! is composer-lyricist Jerry Herman and book writer Michael Stewart’s 1964 musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s 1954 play The Matchmaker.
Historically, though, the show is director-choreographer Gower Champion and legendary producer David Merrick’s fusion of stage spectacle and a series of star turns, from the title role’s creator, Carol Channing, through Mary Martin, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey (with Cab Calloway heading a famous all-black cast) and others, to the originally intended lead Ethel Merman closing the show’s seven-year Broadway run at the end of 1970. (The 1969 film version with the famously miscast Barbra Streisand can be left for another day.)
So what happens when Light Opera Works -- a non-Equity company that works with a limited budget, focuses on original scores in full (including offering the luxury of a professional, 22-piece union orchestra), and is not about to bring in today’s Channing or Merman -- even if she existed -- takes up this relatively thin work?
Good and joyous things, as it turns out. The company’s artistic director, Rudy Hogenmiller, both directs and choreographs his 30-member cast with a “we can do it” feel, and conductor Roger L. Bingaman and his orchestra bring out the musical pleasures of such numbers as “Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” “Ribbons Down My Back,” “Dancing,” and “Elegance” that show Herman working on a subtler and more serious level than in the show’s anthem “Before the Parade Passes By” and its big title number (a hit, thanks to Louis Armstrong’s recording, even before the Broadway show opened).
The Evanston production also benefits from its age-appropriate leads: Chicago-area (Equity) veteran Mary Robin Roth as “Mrs. Dolly Levi, born Gallagher,” the turn-of-the-last-century purveyor of “social introductions,” and company stalwart Peter Verdico as the “rich, friendless, and mean” Yonkers “half-a-millionaire” feed-and-grain man Horace Vandergelder, with whom the long-widowed Dolly has decided to make a match for herself.
Roth is more Merman than Channing, especially as the show’s silly but inevitable plot unfolds, and that’s just fine when she hits her stride about two-thirds into the first act. From then on we’re ready for her to carry us anywhere with her merry blend of goofiness, schmaltz, and feel-good philosophizing.
Robert Brady is a bighearted Cornelius Hackl, the romantic store clerk, and Patrick Tierney as his sidekick Barnaby Tucker has a breakout turn eerily reminiscent at times of the late brilliant Chicago actor Guy Adkins early in his career. Jessye Wright is a fine Mrs. Irene Molloy and shows a beautiful voice in “Ribbons.” Danielle Plisz, Diane Mair, and Yvonne Strumecki nicely round out the 1890s ladies.
Roth’s eye-popping costumes were created by Rafael Colon Castanera for her earlier outing in the role at Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Emily Nelson does a remarkable job of matching them for her large cast, and with them Tom Burch’s backdrops give a gentle feel of Old New York.
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