[NEohioPAL] Review of touring "Hello, Dolly!"

[Bob Abelman]

Even the overture gets an ovation in soon-to-be-touring ‘Hello, Dolly!’



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, American Theatre Critics Association



“Hello, Dolly!” is a star vehicle plain and simple.  It has been since the original Broadway and London productions over 50 years ago.



Thirty-eight seconds into the opening number of this always classy and now-classic musical, the likes of theater legends Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, Mary Martin and Ethel Merman have entered the stage on a horse-drawn trolley as the marvelously self-assured Dolly Gallagher Levi.



In the 2017 Broadway revival, Bette Midler raised the role’s sass quotient while her replacement, Bernadette Peters, offered a more endearing Dolly imbued with layers of charm and warmth. She was the polish, said The Washington Post, on Midler’s brass.  She won the audience with her dimples, noted The New York Times, while Midler did so with a Cheshire cat’s grin.



So the question to ask and answer at the opening of the Playhouse Square launch of the touring “Hello, Dolly!” is what kind of Dolly is Tony Award-winning actress Betty Buckley, the woman New York Magazine labeled “The Voice of Broadway” two decades ago?



Sadly, she is the least interesting thing on stage.  



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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