"Goodbye, Dolly"

Cheesy but appropriate.

I will not be seeing the touring company production of Hello, Dolly, currently playing in Los Angeles. 

But I will – and am at this actual moment – be thinking about it.

(Note:  I am writing this in a hotel room in New York.  It is too complicated to get on the Internet.  Therefore, this post will be uncharacteristically light – actually totally deficient – on research.  Full Disclosure:  I am not “a hundred percent” that there’s a comma in Hello, Dolly.)

I saw the original production of Hello, Dolly in – probably – 1964.  (Is there an “app” for Googling your own brain?”)  Dolly was the ‘hot show” of that particular Broadway season.  I felt lucky to get in.  (How?  I had a rich friend, with “connections.”)

I recall this vividly about the show. 

I went in with enthusiasm.

And came out with de-thusiasm. 

Which is not a word but it should be.

You ready for one snarky sentence?

The show is in 1912.

And so is the comedy.

Hello, Dolly:  “Fine.  But we’re running, and you’re not.”

Touche.  (“Accent egue”, but not on this laptop)

Still, that was my reaction.  Musty story.  Groanworthy jokes.

And yet… a truly frustrating “And yet”…

You see, I’m a devout “Content Person.” 

Hello, Dolly scored “D” for “Content.”

But “A+” for box-office.

You can see how that would disturb a “Content Person.”  You can’t?  Well it does, okay?  People like me work our butts off on “Content.”  And when the audience says, “We don’t care about ‘Content’”, we reflexively hear, “We don’t care about you.”

What made Hello Dolly a hit? 

A star.  (Originally, Carol Channing.)  And a part, written specifically for that star.

Some hummable tunes,

And, most importantly,

“Infused spectacle.”

I remember reading about that before seeing the show.  In the beginning, Hello, Dolly was floundering.  “Geriatric”, in every regards.  Then “Dolly’s” director Gower Champion ingeniously “pumped it up”, turning it into a dazzling Thanksgiving Day balloon. 

Elegant costumes.  (Featuring broad-plus brimmed hats – try saying that three times fast; or once, even – with outsized plumage.)

A massive spiraling staircase for the star’s show-stopping “Number.”

And a breathtaking “effect”, which I shall save for the end.

Let me be clear.  Resenting an “approach” does not mean not succumbing to “Wow!”

I definitely succame.

For a moment.

And then I went “Wait.”

I truly appreciate “stagecraft.”

But where’s the show? 

FLASH FORWARD TO 1967.

I am living in London.  Hello, Dolly’s playing to rapturous acclaim at the venerable Drury Lane Theater.

One matinee afternoon, I am attending an English musical called Man of Magic, a “tuner” – as Variety calls it – biography of Harry Houdini. 

Written entirely by English people.

A reality exposed by telltale “inflected dialogue”, like,

“You look tired, Harry.  Why don’t you go have a ‘lie-down'."

I am sitting at Man of Magic awaiting the curtain to go up, when I overhear behind me two Londoner audience members, chronicling the theatrical terrain.

“Anything good you can recommend?”

“Hello, Dolly is lovely!”

“You enjoyed that, did you?’

“Oh, yes.  It’s magnificent!”

Summarizing its “magnificence” in a singular highlight:

“They had a train go straight across the stage.  An actual train!”

For that theatergoer, that “train” – standing for “Great giftwrapping, weak gift” –

Was all it took.