HELLO, DOLLY! Reviews- Page 2

[Cat Guy]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:17pm

With all the crap going on in the world today, I NEED Dolly and I NEED Bette, even if for "just a moment".

Updated On: 4/20/17 at 06:17 PM

[DrJekyll]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:24pm

I don't care what the reviews say.

I know what I saw Apr 8, and that I was grinning from the first note of the overture until the curtain came down.

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:31pm

Terry Teachout is a great critic, and his distaste for the show makes sense considering he hates "cartoonish" acting during a farce.

[Valentina3]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:38pm

Fantod said: "Terry Teachout is a great critic"

 



 

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:41pm

Matthew Murray is positive:

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/HelloDolly2017.html

[Jimmyb1969]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:49pm

Can somebody post Treachouts review please? And it was an unacceptable move to post it so early. Good or bad.  No matter how you feel about him. A completely calculated and narcissistic thing to do before the show even started. He should be fired! 

[Musical Master]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:59pm

Wow, the Murray review was positive? This is a good sign as any.

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 6:59pm

Murray's review brought a tear to my eye.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:00pm

Fair Use, so bite me, WSJ. Hidden behind a spoiler cut for those who would rather just kick Treachout up and down the restaurant.

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

Bette Midler is playing in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway. As far as most people are concerned, this review could end right here. The box office at the Shubert Theatre has been printing $100 bills by the truckload ever since previews for the show started in March, and no matter what I or anybody else has to say, it will continue to do so as long as Ms. Midler doesn’t slip and fracture a tibia. She is what she is, “Hello, Dolly!” is what it is, and putting the two together is as close as show business gets to a no-brainer: “Dolly” won’t work without a superstar in the title role and Patti LuPone is otherwise occupied, so casting Ms. Midler as Dolly Gallagher Levi, the matchmaker with a big heart and an empty purse who longs for a rich husband to ease her life, makes perfect sense. That’s the theory, anyway, and judging by the show-stopping shrieks of joy that greeted Ms. Midler when she made her first entrance on Wednesday night, her fans are going to love this revival. I’ve never seen a performance of anything at which there was so unanimous a consensus on the part of the audience that the diva could do no wrong.

Perhaps critics ought not to dash cold water on such displays of collective affection, but the producers of “Hello, Dolly!” are charging $169 for an orchestra seat, for which reason it seems to me that I have an obligation to report honestly on what I saw and heard. So here goes: Ms. Midler’s singing voice is in a desperate, sometimes shocking state of disrepair. If you remember what Ethel Merman sounded like in her last years, you’ll know exactly how she sounded in “Before the Parade Passes By.” I’m not sure whether she’s suffering from an acute case of laryngitis (her speaking voice was hoarse as well) or the inescapable effects of age (she is 71). Whatever the reason, her singing suggested that she’d have trouble making it through the curtain calls, much less the run of a show as demanding as “Dolly.” As for the rest of the performance, Ms. Midler doesn’t even bother to act: She simply comes on stage and plays her familiar self, albeit at a disturbingly low level of energy. Unlike Carol Channing, who created the role, she can’t dance and isn’t funny (I was actually embarrassed by her mugging in the courtroom scene). All she has to offer is the memory of a great career, and if that’s enough for you, then you’ll be happy to shell out to see her in “Hello, Dolly!”

Ms. Midler is playing opposite David Hyde Pierce, who is all wrong as Horace Vandergelder, the blustering miser who falls for Dolly after fighting off his inescapable fate right up to the finale. He is, to be sure, a talented actor, but his lightweight charm is utterly ill-suited to the role, and I’ve no idea what possessed him to speak his lines in a now-you-hear-it, now-you-don’t Groucho Marx accent. What’s more, he and Ms. Midler have no romantic chemistry at all, which makes the show even less dramatically plausible.

Jerry Zaks and Warren Carlyle, the director and choreographer, have staged this revival in a cartoonish manner. That’s appropriate in a way, since “Hello, Dolly!” is a cartoon version of Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” the enduringly winning 1955 farce from which it was adapted by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart in 1964. Nevertheless, it’s possible to perform “Dolly” with the same unforced sweetness and underlying emotional seriousness that make “The Matchmaker” so satisfying a romantic comedy, and that’s what’s wrong with Mr. Zaks’s staging: It’s totally unfelt. Every supporting performance is a grotesque caricature—even Kate Baldwin and Jennifer Simard, two of Broadway’s best musical-comedy actors, are here reduced to the most benumbingly obvious of clichés—and every laugh is jerked out of the audience by brute force instead of emerging naturally from the script. As for the musical numbers, they’re camped up to the hilt, an approach that puts an odd spin on “It Takes a Woman.”

I very much liked Santo Loquasto’s deliberately old-fashioned sets and costumes, which would have served a better production very well indeed. It was also a pleasure to hear the 22-piece pit band, which played Larry Hochman’s new orchestrations with satisfying professionalism. But there is nothing else good to be said for this “Hello, Dolly!” While the show itself, like all of Mr. Herman’s musicals, is lapel-clutchingly cheery to the point of diminishing returns, it’s not hard to see why it was and is so popular, nor is it impossible for skeptics to appreciate a production that makes the most of its cornball charms. This one makes the worst of them.

 

It came with this precious editor's note. Guess someone's been reading BWW:

Editor’s note: This review was inadvertently posted before the opening-night performance, a breach of Broadway standard practice.

Fuck them.

Updated On: 4/20/17 at 07:00 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:04pm

I disagree with him .  I think Bette's Dolly is perfection.   And by the way he structured his review.. at least to me it reads like his review has alterior motive. ( as in.. I am going to be the bitchy clever one to find fault with the stars performance) .  That was the motive of his review and he sets it up from the start.   But just my opinion. 

Updated On: 4/20/17 at 07:04 PM

[Mildred Plotka]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:07pm

Inadvertently posted early my ass! Was this conservative rag just determined to hate Midler no matter what based on her liberal  views? 

[DAME]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:08pm

Mildred Plotka said: "Inadvertently posted early my ass! Was this conservative rag just determined to hate Midler no matter what based on her liberal  views? 

 

"

AGREED!   Bull Crap!

[Butter Broadway]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:28pm

I think the problem is everybody hyped up the show since it was first announced. It's all an expectations game, which is why most of my friends were underwhelmed by it.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:29pm

LA times and Time Out are raves .

[Robbie2]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:30pm

Butter Broadway said: "I think the problem is everybody hyped up the show since it was first announced. It's all an expectations game, which is why most of my friends were underwhelmed by it.

 

"LOL Most of your friends, I can just imagine ...HUH!? Did you see it?

 

[Butter Broadway]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:31pm

Yes, I felt the same way as them. Still liked it a lot though. Wonder what Brantley is going to say about it.

[Robbie2]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:39pm

RAVE from LA TIMES Bette Midler and 'Hello, Dolly!': A match that makes for Broadway heaven

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-hello-dolly-review-20170420-story.html

 

Updated On: 4/20/17 at 07:39 PM

[Robbie2]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:42pm

Rave from TIMEOUT 5 *****

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/hello-dolly-2

 

[Robbie2]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:46pm

Hello, Dolly!’ review: Bette Midler shines in this glorious Broadway revival

By Matt Windman   amNewYork Theater Critic April 20, 2017

http://www.amny.com/entertainment/hello-dolly-review-bette-midler-shines-in-this-glorious-broadway-revival-1.13498295

 

[LesWickedly]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:47pm

One of the greatest nights of theatre I've ever had. I went in knowing next to nothing about the show itself (crazy, I know) and came out loving it. I will never forget the amazing Midler on the top of her game and the amazing cast all around. What a beautiful and fun show. I get sick of people saying this, but it is true, this is the show we need at this time. You better buy your tickets now, it will be almost impossible after tonight.

[Robbie2]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 7:51pm

Daily Mail

Broadway belongs to Bette and her Dolly! BAZ BAMIGBOYE sees the indestructible star give a rousing performance!

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4410554/Broadway-belongs-Bette-Midler-Dolly.html#ixzz4epwSw3hJ 


 

[Sauja]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 8:00pm

We're in the minority, but there are those of us here who were also disappointed by this production. I know it will get raves and Bette will get the Tony, but I found the whole night rather flat and bland. I'm not as negative on it as Teachout, but I've been admittedly flummoxed by the head over heels reactions.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 8:01pm

Washington Post is a Rave.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/04/20/bette-midler-and-hello-dolly-are-a-perfect-match-dont-tell-me-youre-surprised/?utm_term=.9810f769c144

[theatreguy12]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 8:03pm

I'm sure the critics have been sitting on their hands, waiting for this day, to see who can outdo the other with their creative use of superlatives.  Is there actually anyone out there who doesn't think this is going to get a majority of positive to rave reviews?  This show will be on the boards with Midler as long as she wants to do it.  I'm not sure why the concern over one or two questionable outliers.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 4/20/17 at 8:06pm

Chicago Tribune is a Rave.

 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/broadway/sc-hello-dolly-broadway-review-ent-0420-20170420-column.html

Updated On: 4/20/17 at 08:06 PM