"Hello, Dolly!" is a musical filled with characters who dream of bigger, fuller lives than they currently have.
The one with the largest dreams, of course, is Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi, a matchmaker whose chief client is herself, as she sets her eyes on the half-a-millionaire, Horace Vandergelder, owner of a feed and supply store in Yonkers, New York, at the end of the 19th century.
The Reagle Players have brought in Rachel York, a star with a number of Broadway credits, to take the title role of "Hello, Dolly!" in their opening production of the summer. York plays Dolly with a big, brassy, sexy air that fills the stage. She has a good, strong singing voice. And there's no doubt that her Dolly is in charge, and in the end she's going to get what she wants, even if it takes a considerable amount of meddling and manipulation to get it.
But Dolly is not the only one in the show who dreams of a bigger life. Irene Molloy is tired of running a hat shop in New York City and has her eyes set on Vandergelder as a way out of a profession that causes people to think she's evil. Sarah Pfisterer brings a sweet, intelligent presence and a gorgeous singing voice to the role of Irene. Her Irene is not about to be conned out of a good meal and time on the town owed her by Vandergelder's assistants, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, for saving their hides.
The assistants' dreams of a bigger life begin with nothing more than a day off in New York City, made possible by setting a candle under cans of tomatoes, causing them to explode.
And then there's Ermengarde who at the age of 17 is determined to marry Ambrose Kemper before she becomes 18 and an old maid.
This musical, of course, is based on Thornton Wilder's play, "The Matchmaker." Its joyous music and witty lyrics were written by Jerry Herman, who also wrote the music and lyrics for Reagle's other two shows this season, "Mame" and "La Cage aux Folles." The book for "Hello, Dolly!" was written by Michael Stewart, and Reagle's production is directed by Worth Howe.
Some older musicals (this one first opened on Broadway in 1964) resonate with something about our times and catch us up in the dreams they spin. "Dolly" doesn't particularly. It's a little hard to buy into some of its premises (so many characters who see marriage as their ticket to a better life) or its plotting (the sophisticated milliner falling for a clerk who hardly has two nickels to rub together), just as it's a little hard to root for Dolly's conquest of a man she wants to marry more for his money than love. Vandergelder is a kind of Scrooge, who says "I became rich, friendless and mean, which in Yonkers is as far as you can go." Jamie Ross, with numerous Broadway credits, brings considerable energy to the role of Vandergelder and makes him as lovable as a curmudgeon can be.
