Sure, Hello, Dolly! is one of the landmark musicals of the so-called Golden Age of the 1960s, racking up a then-record high 2,844 performances on Broadway.
But ever since, the Jerry Herman show has been under the hammerlock of its originating star, Carol Channing, who has clung steadfastly to Gower Champion’s Tony Award-winning staging and choreography.
When Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s producing artistic director Andrew Kato chose the show — based on Thornton Wilder’s classic 1955 comedy, The Matchmaker, about sly professional meddler Dolly Gallagher Levi in turn-of-the-century Yonkers — for his season-ending, subscription-renewals-in-the-mail slot, he was interested in a new take on the material. So he gave the assignment to Marcia Milgrom Dodge, the Tony-nominated director of Ragtime’s recent revival and Carbonell Award winner for choreographing the Maltz’s crowd-pleasing Anything Goes.
“I’m an interpreter,” says Dodge. I don’t go around taking Gower Champion’s work and calling it mine. That’s plagiarism. So open your heart to someone else’s interpretation.
“Every show I do, I try to respect the original without copying it. If I take my clues from the text, and from listening to a piano recording of the music, then I’m not influenced by Mr. Champion’s choices,” she says, adding, “I would never make a choice just to be different, but because it was organic to these actors and these dancers playing these roles at this time.”
Part of the reason she signed on to do Dolly! was that the offer came with Tony winner Gary Beach (The Producers) already cast as comic curmudgeon Horace Vandergelder.
“When you have Gary Beach, just having a line that says, ‘I don’t need you to find me another wife. I’ve found her and it’s you, dammit.’ But the way he chooses to say ‘dammit’ is just funny,” Dodge notes. “It’s his comic genius. It’s hilarious.”
Still, the show is not Hello, Horace!, so Dodge needed a powerhouse female lead to prevent Beach from running away with the show. She soon thought of Vicki Lewis, a Broadway veteran probably best known for the ’80s TV ensemble sitcom, News Radio.
Pint-sized Lewis is certainly not the usual physical type for Dolly, but Dodge sounds confident about her choice. “You have to banish any kind of traditional interpretation, because Vicki is a very sexy woman,” the director says. “I don’t think Carol Channing really exuded a sexuality. But Vicki’s extraordinary.
“When you put Gary Beach in there and Vicki Lewis in there, and all these crazy, talented young performers around them, we get this happy stew. It’s a really young company, but with these two leads, it’s like a master class in comedy. The damn thing just works.”
The comedy is a given, but Dodge adds that it also contains Wilder’s wily way with surprisingly contemporary political commentary. She points to “(Dolly’s) last speech about the difference between people with money and no money, and with money and a little bit of money. She could be talking about Occupy Wall Street and the one percenters.”
And in Lewis’s hands, the role will have a bit of pathos. “She had to be resourceful in terms of surviving. She lost her husband and her means, so she’s a jack-of-all-trades,” says Lewis. “She needs to make ends meet and she’s tired. I certainly can relate to that. I think she cares for Horace, but he’s got a lot of money and she’s tired. She’s a strong woman, and in those times that’s not something you found every day.”
Lewis found as she explored the character of Dolly Levi that she has a lot in common with her. “I’m really strong-headed. I’m manipulative. I’m flirty, vibrant, I like to have fun. I’m a jokester, and I’m a little broken and a little soulful,” she says. “I think those are the things that you really need to play this woman.”
Beach, who has recently relocated to Palm Beach Gardens, had indicated to Kato an interest in appearing at the Maltz and was especially drawn to Hello, Dolly! “I wanted to do a nice fun role that I had never done before, hopefully with good people. When I was a kid, going to New York, this was the hot show. This was ‘The Book of Mormon’ or ‘Hairspray’ of its day,” he says. “So just to be a part of it now is exciting.”
And if there is sufficient interest in the show to take it on to New York, Beach says he’d be willing to go along with it. “It’s funny you should say that,” he responds. “I was thinking last night on the way home, ‘I could do this for six months,’ and I don’t say that too often. This is really fun and it’s so emotional, in ways I sort of forgot. So, yeah, why not?”
Asked why audiences should head to the Maltz to see Hello, Dolly!, Lewis has several reasons. “Because you’re going to genuinely laugh harder than you have in a long time. And you’ll also cry. And there’s some really handsome boys up there dancing.”
HELLO, DOLLY! Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, Jupiter. Continuing through April 1. Tickets: $43-$60. Call: (561) 575-2223.