Productions - Hello Dolly
And what do you do for a living, Mrs Levi?" asks Ambrose Kemper in the first scene of this most delightful of musical comedies. "Some people paint, some sew … I meddle", replies Dolly and we are off on a whirlwind race around New York and Yonkers at the turn of the century as we follow the adventures of that most mischievous matchmaker, Mrs Dolly Gallagher Levi.
HELLO, DOLLY! Is the story of Mrs Levi's efforts to marry Horace Vandergelder, the well-known half-a-millionaire, so that she can send his money circulating like rainwater, the way her late husband Ephraim Levi taught her. Along the way she also succeeds in matching up the young and beautiful Widow Molloy with Vandergelder's head clerk, Cornelius Hackl; Cornelius's assistant Barnaby Tucker with Mrs Molloy's assistant, Minnie Fay and the struggling artist Ambrose Kemper with Mr Vandergelder's weeping niece, Ermengarde.
Mrs Levi tracks Vandergelder to his hay and feed store in Yonkers, then by train back to Mrs Molloy's hat shop in New York, out into the streets of the city where they are all caught up in the great Fourteenth Street Association Parade and then to the most elegant and expensive restaurant in town, the Harmonia Gardens, where Dolly is greeted by the waiters, cooks, doormen and wine stewards in one of the most famous songs in the history of American musical comedy - "Hello, Dolly!"
What happens in the end? Dolly gets her man, of course. And he is delighted she caught him. Dolly leaves the stage at the end of Act II with a wink to the audience as she takes a peek into Vandergelder's bulging cash register and promises that his fortune will soon be put to good use. She quotes her late husband Ephraim: "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worthy a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow."
The show-stopping numbers in this sparkling show include:
PUT ON YOUR SUNDAY CLOTHES, IT TAKES A WOMAN, BEFORE THE PARADE PASSES BY, ELEGANCE, HELLO, DOLLY! THE WAITERS' GALOP
Photos courtesy of: VIC HERBERT PHOTOGRAPHY 01432 273712
