Quote from Matt H. last night:
I saw her, too, on Broadway. She was Pearlie Mae all the way, no Dolly that I could discern. It helped that I had seen the show done legitimately by other actresses. Pearlie just played around with it. Would stop the show and complain about how her feet hurt. Would decide to reprise "So long, Dearie" on a whim.
The audience ate up every second of it, and it WAS entertaining, but it wasn't HELLO, DOLLY!
Matt H., I don't doubt your memory of the Pearl Bailey performance that you saw, because I have read a great many similar accounts over the years. I don't know what could account for the difference, but Ms. Bailey's performance that I saw at the St. James Theatre was all Dolly Levi, and absolutely no Pearlie Mae. She literally lit up the stage and she and Cab Calloway were perfectly cast against each other. The only break in the performance was the eating scene in Harmonia Gardens, but her few off the cuff remarks were far less than I have seen some Dollys do.
I can't explain the difference between the two shows. I don't if it had anything to do with where in the run she was, whether she was tired at the end of the week or fresh at the beginning, or even if it came from doing two-a-day; but she gave an electrifying performance the night I saw the show. And the HELLO DOLLY number literally stopped the show.
And she didn't even know that I was going to be there that night.