Let's cut to the chase: The best theatrical production in the region right now is 'Hello, Dolly!' at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre.
If you like energetic, brassy, foot-stomping rib-tickling musicals, you will not witness better within several hours drive of the Muhlenberg College campus in Allentown, PA.
If you think you've come across a better actor to portray Dolly Gallagher Levi than Mighty Mia Scarpa, pull off the road right now and get out of your car; you're driving while impaired.
You'll be very hard pressed to find more delightful supporting players than the lovely Erica Morreale as Minnie Mouse--- er, Minnie Fay, or the gymnastic Nick Picknally as Barnaby Tucker.
And wait till you see the Herculean James Du Chateau defy gravity while dead-lifting other dancers through a thicket of human whirligigs!
As we have come to expect year in and year out for the past 35 years, MSMT is THE place to go to see pure, unadorned, and sincere musical theater in this region.
The musical direction is as good as it gets, the dancing never fails to satisfy, and the simple unpretentious atmosphere inside beautiful Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance is always reminiscent of a youth spent at Broadway matinees during the so-called Golden Age of American Musicals, of which 'Hello, Dolly!' is often cited as 'iconic'.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must reveal that while I tend to sit stone-faced most of the evening at the best of shows, the younger woman to my right last night laughed so hard her body shook through several moments of the second act. And her reaction was representative of the audience in general.
So, I believe it's completely fair and accurate to report that this show was both entertaining and engaging.
Okay, that was the chase; now, let's get cut to the idle chatter:
We'll begin in Act Two of 'Hello, Dolly!', the storied musical now parading itself across the stage and, courtesy of a curving runway that encircled the orchestra pit, well into the midst of Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre's 365 seats.
At the conclusion of a long awaited but precisely timed intermission, the orchestra abruptly hushed us to attention, the stage curtain was swiftly yanked into the sky, and, after the usual post-intermission reminders of where we'd left off fifteen minutes earlier, the dining room of a magnificent two-story restaurant unfolded before us like a pop-up castle in a children's book of fairy tales.
And this restaurant, teeming with smartly uniformed wait staff and formally attired patrons, all of whom could sing in glorious harmonies and tumble like The Peking Acrobats, became the scene of enough joy, humor, energy, creativity, skill, and stage craft to off-set the fact that none of these elements appeared in sufficient quantity in the first act of the show.
The first act, you see, is taxed with having to make something out of nothing, to explain a plot that simply doesn't exist, to justify all the alternately silly and astonishing songs and dances that, try as anyone might, just won't allow themselves to be tied together into any meaningful whole.
And director Charles Richter tried his darnedest!
He kick-started the show exactly the right way, music, singing, and dancing in full motion before the curtain had even risen, giving you no time at all to think about what you were going to be seeing when the stage was finally unveiled.
The set was breathtaking, as we've come to expect at MSMT, invariably a jungle gym on steroids, with multiple levels and steep stairs from which people are almost guaranteed to fling themselves... or threaten to.
Everyone on that set last night, supported by eye-popping costuming, was so thoroughly entertaining that we cannot doubt the stories surrounding the show's legendary original producer, David Merrick, and Jerry Herman's book's and score's near-fatal shortcomings, and we can comfortably fault them, and not Muhlenberg, for all the many things that were missing from the night's first sixty-seven minutes while at the same time excusing and even heartily applauding the present cast and crew who were challenged to make something memorable out of them.
Here's the synopsis:
1890s!
Everyone in New York is single and lonely!
A self-styled matchmaker--- who is lonliest of them all--- comes to town and connives and conspires to hook people up.
Through no fault of her own, and assisted by the unseen and unheard spirit of her dead husband, she succeeds.
Finale!
Somewhat disconertingly, the highlight of the show--- and it's a doozie--- is that finale.
Dolly and the ensemble saturate the stage, the air, and the night for at least three blocks outside the theater in all directions, with spirited and rousing reprises of the show's finer songs and shuffles.
Special props to Scenic Designer Campbell Baird, Choregrapher Karen Dearborn, and especially Musical Director Michael Schnack.
Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, and countless other legendary stage actors have played the title role in this play.
Ms Scarpa, strutting the stage floor of this production like a she-lion, needn't fear comparison. She's a Martha Raye look-alike with Merman's pipes and Ginger Rogers' arches. She storms into Act Two like Sherman's March to the Sea, in an unstoppable commitment to overcome the inadequacies of the book. Her comedic timing was consistent and strong throughout the final 55 minutes of the night.
Lest you feel we're shortchanging the many fine male actors in this production, please be aware that it isn't called 'Hello, Dolly!' by mistake.
One of the show's most insuperable weaknesses is that no male actor--- or company of them--- can hope to balance the stage when Dolly's out there with them.
That said, you must also be apprised that there was nary a weak link in the mighty chain of secondary and ensemble cast members who supported her.
Most prominent among them included Jarrod Yuskauskas, as Horace Vandergelde. Intentionally or not, he ofttimes recalled Walter Matthau, who played Horace in the Streisdand movie-version of the play.
And it worked.
Erica Morreale surely doesn't stand five tall, even in three inch heels, but in the spirit of diminuative Sandy Duncans and Bernadette Peters who have preceded her on the musical stage, she managed to stand taller than anyone else in the opening act.
One minor complaint: The Cheek leech, or microphone, that crawls down the faces of MSMT's cast members.
While I understand the fear that an orchestra could drown out singers unless they're wearing wireless microphones, I'd like to know why those mikes can't be turned off during dialogue scenes. What's the rationale there'
'Hello, Dolly!' will play through July 26.
Tickets and information are available at muhlenberg.edu/SMT and 484-664-3333.