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 The Theatreguide.London Review

In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others by streaming new shows, and various online archives preserve still more vintage productions. Even as things return to normal we continue to review the experience of watching live theatre onscreen.

Hello Dolly
Broadway 2017 and YouTube     November 2024

This is a bootleg video of the 2017 Broadway revival of Hello Dolly, illegally made by a member of the audience and therefore morally offensive.

It is a bad bootleg recording, with shaky camera not always pointed in the right direction, muddy sound and an obtrusive thumb covering part of the screen, and therefore aesthetically annoying.

But it is a recording of a major revival of a major musical with a major star – Bette Midler – and as such may, for all its flaws, be of interest to fans of the show, the star or musical theatre itself.

What you will see is an absolutely first-rate production with a disappointing star at its centre.

The Jerry Herman (songs) – Michael Stewart (book) musical originally appeared 1964-1970, with a revival in 1995, and between the two and several road companies just about every singing actress of a certain age had an opportunity to star in it.

Now it was the turn of Bette Midler and, sadly, at 72 she proves just barely up to the challenge. Fans of Miss M, among whom I count myself, know that her power as a performer lay in being big, broad and unapologetically vulgar, obviously enjoying herself herself onstage and dragging us along with her – a description that would also seem to fit Dolly Levy perfectly.

This may have been an unusually low-energy evening for Midler – she did win the Tony that year – but what we see through too much of this video is a nice little old lady working very hard to keep up with the singers and dancers around her, and only occasionally giving us flashes of the star..

Dolly Levy has to command the stage from the minute she comes on, and it can't be just the follow spotlight that makes us unable to take our eyes off her. But Midler repeatedly gets lost in the crowd.

Nowhere is the hole-where-she-should-be more glaring than in the truly great title song, where the chorus boy waiters have to work very hard to disguise the fact that they are carrying her, by dancing with extra energy around her as she walks through the same steps.

Through most of the show Midler is at her best in the more intimate moments, speaking to her dead husband, for example, or in the quiet yearning start of Before The Parade Passes By.

And it really isn't until the next-to-closing So Long Dearie that she finally lets loose and gives us a real Divine Miss M blow-out of a performance – a total delight but a little too little a little too late.

If Midler is a disappointment, the production around her is supurb, a real reminder of how big, brassy and colourful a real live Broadway musical is supposed to be.

Director Jerry Zaks, choreographer Warren Carlyle and the various designers put all the money up there onstage, and in an age when sometimes the set seems to dance better than anyone on it, we get constant imaginative and entertaining movement.

Zaks and Carlyle wisely take Gower Champion's original 1964 staging as their template, weaving little filigrees around it rather than trying to replace it. It Takes A Woman still generates the sight gag of men literally popping out of the woodwork to sing along, and Put On Your Sunday Clothes and I'm Dancing are whirls of colour.

Before The Parade Passes By turns into such a big and exciting production number that you might think it was the show's big song if you didn't know what was coming later, and the waiters' dance that leads up to Dolly's appearance at the top of those stairs is 10 minutes or so of sheer fun.

David Hyde Pierce isn't quite grumpy and scary enough as Vandergelder, though he does do comic perplexity and out-of-his-depth-ness delightfully.

He can also sing (almost a first in the role) and a comic song about how he made his money, dropped from the original production before Broadway, was reinstated to let him open the second act with a showcase front-of-curtain solo.

The supporting players have been directed to be just that – supports – good enough but not so good that they distract from the star. Gavin Creel and Taylor Trensch as the runaway apprentices make little impression and the women they are paired with are barely visible.

It should have been wonderful, but with a disappointing Dolly at its centre, you could almost fast-forward through most of her scenes to get what's best about it.

Gerald Berkowitz