Betty Buckley is making matches right and left while earning ovation after ovation as only a Broadway legend can in the 10-Tony-award-winning 1964 classic Hello, Dolly!, now paying L.A. a three-week visit to Hollywood’s Pantages.

Taking the best of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, Michael Stewart’s sparklingly funny book stirs in over a dozen now-classic Jerry Herman show tunes, a mix that gets seasoned with one toe-tapping, high-kicking production number after another, all of the above adding up to a musical that remains fresh and new more than half-a-century after Carol Channing sashayed down the Harmonia Gardens staircase, a restaurantful of red-jacketed waiters welcoming her back where she belonged.

 Hello, Dolly!’s titular matchmaker is of course none other than Dolly Gallagher Levi (Buckley, commanding the stage from her very first entrance), Yonkers’ most celebrated maker of romantic matches, tops among them the one she’s got planned for herself to half-a-millionaire hay-and-feed store proprietor Horace Vandergelder (Lewis J. Stadlen, channeling Jimmy Durante to curmudgeonly perfection) if only she can get the miserly widower to see things her way, no easy task since the grumpy old man has set his sights on half-his-age milliner Irene Molloy (Analisa Leaming, statuesque and stunning), whom he’s headed off to New York to visit.

 Meanwhile, Vandergelder’s downtrodden virginal 33-year-old head clerk Cornelius Hackl (Nic Rouleau, appealing as all get-out) and his teenage helpmate Barnaby Tucker (Jess LoProtto, boyishly winning, and the lead cast’s most spectacular dancer) have planned their own overnight escape to the Big Apple, vowing not to return to Yonkers “until we’ve kissed a girl.”

 As for the possibility of either clerk running into their boss in NYC, well honestly, how likely could that be in a city of a couple million residents?

Playwright Wilder and book writer Stewart make sure that the unlikely happens quicker than Cornelius and Barnaby can say “Let’s hide in the closet before Mr. Vangergelder enters the hat shop where we’ve been chatting up both its owner and her assistant Minnie Fay (a deliciously oddball Kristen Hahn).”

Later, in the musical’s most celebrated sequence, Wilder and Stewart reunite all concerned at the posh Harmonia Gardens restaurant, whose pair of curtained booths offer convenient cover, though for how long is anyone’s guess.

Herman’s lyrics not only propel plot but his melodies remain among the catchiest ever written for a Broadway show, and when it’s the entire cast joining voices in exquisite Herman harmonies, the result could hardly be more gorgeous.

All of this adds up to a musical that would probably be revived as often as its fellow mid-‘60s Best Musical Tony winners Fiddler On The Roof, Man Of La Mancha, and Cabaret if only leading ladies like Betty Buckley were a dime a dozen rather than one in a million.

 From the moment Buckley proclaims her matchmaking intentions in “I Put My Hand In” to her declaration of liberation in “Before The Parade Passes By” to the goodbye-and-good-riddance gem “So Long Dearie,” Dolly Levi is in the hands of a master of comic timing, smoky (and smokin’) vocals, and effortless scene-stealing, with some nifty toe-tapping thrown in for good measure.

 And speaking of dance, Warren Carlyle’s choreography may draw too heavily on Gower Champion’s original vision to have been Tony-eligible two years back, but has there ever been choreography more worthy of recreating than the side-shuffling “I Put My Hand In,” or the infectiously high-stepping “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day delights of “Before The Parade Passes By,” to name just three act-one showstoppers that are merely a prelude to the wonders of

 “The Waiters’ Gallop” featuring nearly a dozen of the finest male dancers in Hollywood or New York (Giovanni Bonaventura, Julian DeGuzman, Dan Horn, Corey Hummerston, Ben Lanham, Kyle Samuel, Scott Shedenhelm, Davis Wayne, Brandon L. Witmore, and Connor Wince) and more restaurant props than I could possibly count.

Thanks to Jerry Zaks’ inspired direction, even cameo players shine bright, from Garret Hawe (an engaging Ambrose Kemper) to Morgan Kerner (a hilariously caterwauling Ermengarde) to Jessica Sheridan (Buckley’s fabulous understudy as a banshee-shrieking vision in yellow and pink), along with Daniel Beeman (Court Clerk), Wally Dunn (Rudolph), and Timothy Shew (Judge).

 Female ensemble members Maddy Apple, Alexandra Frohlinger, Madison Johnson, Beth Kirkpatrick, Marina Cristina Slye, and Cassie Austin Taylor may have relatively less to do, but are still given abundant opportunities to shine.

Cast vocals and a sensational touring/local pit orchestra are under the accomplished baton of musical director Robert Billig, with sound designer Scott Leher ensuring a crystal-clear mix.

Hello, Dolly! looks quite magnificent thanks to Santo Loquasto’s Gay ‘90s picture-postcard sets and the most gorgeous saturated color costumes you’re likely to see all year, vibrantly lit by Natasha Katz.

Stephen Edlund is associate director and Sara Edwards is associate choreographer. Assistant dance captain Brittany Bohn, Whitney Cooper, Nathan Keen, and dance captain Ian Liberto are swings. Brian J. L’Ecuyer is production stage manager and Mike McLinden is company manager.

 From the moment Carol Channing walked down that red velvet staircase some fifty-five years ago, there’s scarcely been a role that becomes a Broadway legend better than Dolly Levi. To the long list of illustrious superstars who have preceded her, the magnificent Betty Buckley can now add her own name in lights.

Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood.
www.hollywoodpantages.com

–Steven Stanley
January 30, 2019
Photos: Julieta Cervantes

Tags: Jerry Herman, Los Angeles Theater Review, Michael Stewart, Pantages Theatre