Back from a horrible drive to Fullerton (an hour and ten minutes for a forty-six minute drive), a mediocre lunch consisting of a submarine sandwich (salami and ham only, no cheese), teeny-tiny side salad and literally one bite of a piece of pepperoni pizza that was pretty ordinary - so probably eight or nine hundred calories, and I'll jog off some of those shortly. The drive home was an hour. But the horrible doesn't stop there. I love Hello, Dolly! I've seen it many, many times - originally with Channing when it came to the Music Center (it actually was the first show to play there), then Ginger Rogers, Pearl Bailey, Dorothy Lamour, Phyllis Diller, and the two tours with Channing. For me, Gower Champion's direction and choreography were absolute genius.
Well, once again we have director vision, we have creatives who think they're better than the authors and the original director, you know, the ones that made one of the most successful and beloved shows in musical theater history. I honest to Pete don't know WHAT the hell I saw but it sure wasn't Hello, Dolly! Hello, Dolly begins with "Call on Dolly" and goes directly into "I Put My Hand In." Not here - here we get one of the late act one monologues about Ephraim while Dolly sits at a mirror. Then we get an acapella slow version of Call on Dolly, which is, I believe, the arrangement the Signature Theater did. Then we get - now wait for it - not "I Put My Hand In" (which is listed in the program) but the movie's opening song, Just Leave Everything to Me. What chutzpah. And, needless to say, wrong and awful. Of course I know several people and I'm not going to discuss that aspect of the show, other than to say if you're going to do new choreography it better be as good as Mr. Champion - it wasn't. The Waiter's Gallop? Not a laugh to be had (and please, wardrobe, sew up the waiter's pants that were split open seam to seam). The greatest showstopper of them all - nope - just swaying and meandering. And on and on and on, almost no laughs, a less than half-full house, and a set that I absolutely loathed. I'm pretty certain I have no idea where these orchestrations came from (no credit for any orchestrator - shameful), but they're not the ones I've known and loved for fifty years. They did have a seventeen-piece band. But I want to know if these changes were approved or if they're just lying to the licensor (why else would you put I Put My Hand In in the program when you're doing the other song). This director with vision has added stuff from The Matchmaker, and endless Streisand bits from the movie. That's how Dolly is played here - ala Streisand. This kind of thing involves moral issues and being a creator and writer it does not sit well with me. It would be one thing if Thornton Wilder worked on the musical or if Ernest Lehman had worked on it, but they didn't, and so to interpolate their work is shameful. The stuff I did with Li'l Abner involved ONLY stuff written by Panama and Frank, the writers of the Broadway show. Period.
