HELLO DOLLY! To 12 September.

London.

HELLO DOLLY!
book by Michael Stewart music and lyrics by Jerry Herman based on Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker.

Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park To 12 September 2009.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm.
Captioned 8 Sept.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.

TICKETS: 0844 826 4242.
www.openairtheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 August.

Colourful and upbeat as Samantha Spiro continues her triumphant progress through Barbra Streisand’s back-catalogue.
This, a fine show from its whole ensemble is also, if not a show-case, a display-case for Samantha Spiro. She sings and dances beautifully, but what gives her performance inlaid-vellum quality is that she’s also a skilled dramatic actress, who’s spanned a catalogue of roles from Beattie Bryant to Barbara Windsor.

Her calm authority shows Dolly doesn’t have to try to impress while the multiple redirections of meaning as she manoeuvres reluctant old curmudgeon Horace Vandergelder towards marrying her (she is a matchmaker after all, as well as purveyor of general social services), is more than deftly-placed snap-responses; there’s a sense of the quick, confident mind behind them.

A totally benign influence, she leaves Allan Corduner simply to be highly efficient as a stout party ready to collapse, culminating in a conversion that makes Ebenezer Scrooge’s change of spirit seem an example of probing psychological subtlety.

What’s ironic is how long Hello took getting round to its central character, beginning as a pre-Victorian one-acter. American dramatist Thornton Wilder came across it in a full-length Austrian adaptation (best known now in Tom Stoppard’s classic adaptation On the Razzle). There the focus was on two shop assistants escaping for a night in the big city, here a sidestream to Dolly’s activities.

Calling his play The Merchant of Yonkers Wilder concentrated on Dolly’s targeted husband, then revisited it, changing the focus of title and action to The Matchmaker. From which Broadway producer David Merrick had the idea for a musical, and…Hello Dolly!.

So, great works are less written than rewritten. And, while it ain’t Ibsen (even in the Norwegian’s lighter mood) Timothy Sheader’s superbly-cast Regent’s Park revival is a great escapist night out, linking the work with old-European operetta – the central grand restaurant scene is East Coast memory of Vienna grandeur while waltz and polka feature in the music – and shows it as a late example of pre-Vietnam New York innocence. It looks lovely and just as you might think Stephen Mear's already-splendid choeography has done its best, it leaps to a new level with a band of tap-dancing, red-coated waiters. Exhilarating stuff.

Mrs Dolly Gallagher Levi: Samantha Spiro.
Ambrose Kemper: Mark Anderson.
Horace Vandergelder: Allan Corduner.
Ermrngarde: Clar Louise Connolly.
Cornelius Hackl: Daniel Crossley.
Barnaby Tucker.
Minnie Fay: Akiya Henry.
Irene Molloy: Josefina Gabrielle.
Ernestina: Annalisa Rossi.
Rudolph: Andy Hockley.
Judge: John Stacey.
Ensemble: Marc Antolin, Rachael Archer, Kevin Brewis., Joanna Goodwin, Francis Haugen, Paul Iveson, Richard Jones, Stuart King, Jo Morris, Brenda Jane Newhouse, Sherris Pennington, Carl Sanderson, Emily Shaw, Craig Turner.

Director: Timothy Sheader.
Designer: Peter McKintosh.
Lighting: Simon Mills.
Sound: Mike Walker.
Musical Director: Phil Bateman.
Orchestrator: David Shrubsole.
Choreographer: Stephen Mear.
Dialect coach: Majella Hurley.
Assistant director: Joseph Fowler.
Assistant Choreographer: Jo Morris.

2009-08-11 11:39:07