When Peggy met Dolly

If you don't have a lead actress with star quality, don't even think about messing with "Hello, Dolly!"

If ever a show depended on the charisma of one performer, this upbeat and nostalgic musical farce is it.

Fortunately, Village Theatre has the right person to fill the bill in Peggy O'Connell, who is Dolly to a fare-thee-well in the show's current stand in Issaquah.

The last time many of us saw the strawberry-blond, perky-voiced O'Connell on a local stage, she was the best thing in a soggy 1994 run of "South Pacific" at 5th Avenue Theatre.

O'Connell played the show's cockeyed optimist Nellie Forbush. And the Broadway-honed actress, who now resides in Minneapolis, imbues her twinkling busybody Dolly with some of the normal-as-blueberry-pie appeal that made her Nellie so winning.

Since the moment playwright Thornton Wilder dreamed up the entrepreneurial widow Dolly Gallagher Levi, she's been a star vehicle.

Everybody loves a good yenta, and Ruth Gordon was the first to take this one for a spin, when Dolly hit Broadway in "The Matchmaker," Wilder's bantering 1955 farce set in 1890s New York.

Theater review


"Hello, Dolly!" Tuesday-Sunday through June 25 at Village Theatre, 303 Front St. N., Issaquah, and Wednesday-Sunday, June 30-July 16, at Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett (425-392-2202 or www.villagetheatre.org).

Later, Shirley Booth was Dolly in a 1958 movie based on the play. And in the 1970s, Dolly returned in the unique form of Carol Channing, in the musical smash "Hello, Dolly!"

Wearing feathered hats resembling small barges and singing Jerry Herman's anthemic showtunes ("When the Parade Passes By," "So Long, Dearie" and, of course, the title song), Channing won legend status in the role.

Her Broadway successors as Dolly, in a run of almost seven years, included Ginger Rogers, Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman and others who knew a hot part for an aging diva when they saw one. (A younger diva, Barbra Streisand, seized on the part too, in the film version.)

With her crackling voice, Debbie Reynolds glow and Gracie Allen timing, O'Connell makes Dolly a more folksy meddler and charmer.

Rather than pity the rich, oafish Yonkers businessman Horace Vandergelder (solid John Patrick Lowrie) whom Dolly sets out to entrap and wed for his dough, you root for her.

Michael Stewart's book for "Hello, Dolly!" retains the plot essentials (and many clever lines) from Wilder's classically constructed play.

It also echoes Dolly's independent spirit, and her plucky avoidance of the fate of many a 19th-century hausfrau. As she notes wryly, "Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she's a householder."

Guided by director-choreographer Steve Tomkins, the Village's "Hello, Dolly!" sprints along nicely. And it culminates amusingly in a swish New York boite (The Harmonia Gardens) with the classic farce climax of dancing waiters, switched wallets, romantic schemes — and, of course, Dolly and the boys singing the title song on a grand staircase.

Not everything in the show rises to O'Connell's level. In the other main romantic couple, reliable Billie Wildrick plays shopkeeper Irene Molloy in lovely voice. But her natural beauty is hidden under a dowdy wig. And as Irene's paramour, Cornelius, Greg Michael Allen dances well but needs lessons in exuding sex appeal.

Finally, the set by Bill Forrester is disappointingly pallid. Those pastel tones are fine for Karen Ledger's delightful period costumes. But in the lightly painted backdrops they literally wash out.

No quibbles, though, with the music. Herman's foursquare tunes (and the pretty ballad, "It Only Takes a Moment") are rendered with flair by conductor Bruce Monroe and his able complement of horns, winds and strings.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com