Hello, Dolly!
Not by design, but Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart's musical hit Broadway when it was most needed. It opened January 16, 1964, less than two months after the JFK assassination. The country was shattered, and along came Dolly Gallagher Levi, a garrulous meddler who could fix everything from faulty plumbing to varicose veins to deflated egos; she could heal and make connections and could banish, if only for an evening, the woes of shaken spectators. Every character moves from hoarding (things and emotions) to spreading around, even Dolly, who's been clinging to her departed husband and a bygone past. Jeanne Reith's late-19th century costumes for Lamb's Players accentuate the constriction. But combine the apparel with Colleen Kollar Smith's click-your-heels choreography, and a transformation occurs: the cast spins and leaps about as if released from bondage. Kerry Meads plays Dolly not as a myth or star vehicle, but as an actual person with a special gift she isn't quite sure how to manage. Meads has vocal difficulties, especially with the score's steep intervals, but has an engaging rapport with the audience. Though he could put more mudge into Horace Vandergelder's curmudgeon-ness, David Cochran Heath scores as the parsimonious burgher from Yonkers. Lance Arthur Smith and real-life wife Colleen combine for the stirring "It Only Takes a Moment," the epicenter of the musical's shift from life battened down to sailing free. In a special cameo, Leonard Patten scat-sings Louis Armstrong's version of the - zap-adoop-mm - title song.
Worth a try.
When
Ongoing until Saturday, March 22, 2008
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm |
| Tuesdays, 7:30pm |
| Wednesdays, 7:30pm |
| Thursdays, 7:30pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 4pm & 8pm |