New Englanders, and everyone else, would do well to sashay up to Maine for the final weekend of Ogunquit Playhouse’s luscious revival of Hello, Dolly! A dream cast that includes three Tony Award winners is handed a stylish production, bursting with musical comedy energy that never lacks for character truthfulness. I had the best time.
Of course the Michael Stewart-Jerry Herman perennial rises or falls largely on its title character, the turn-of-the-century widowed matchmaker who puts her hand in everyone’s business and ends up fixing all problems, including her own. I have seen more Dolly Levis than you can shake a stick at, from Channing to Midler and many in between, and Beth Leavel will remain in my memory at the top or close to it, thanks to her effortless ability to inhabit the entire role, one of the most demanding of the genre. Comedically she’s reminiscent of Martha Raye, able to execute a fall-and-sprawl without losing her dignity or the show’s flow. Director Maggie Burrows, not previously known to me but I shall be clocking her work hereafter, allows Dolly to stay at the Harmonia Gardens dinner table while the action switches to the courtroom, the legal proceeding put on hold as Leavel engages in a lengthy pantomime involving dumplings, and improv with the audience, that left me in stitches at her inventiveness and bravura control.
But we’ve always known how hilarious this thesp can be, as far back as her Tony Award-winning turn as The Drowsy Chaperone. Here she nails vulnerability as well. There’s the usual confident entry into all her schemes and scams; it wouldn’t be Dolly without a high level of chutzpah. But what makes the character often insufferable – a too-serene confidence that it will all work out her way – is absent in this portrayal. Not since Pearl Bailey have I seen delivered such a heartfelt, even desperate plea to the late Ephraim to bless her second marriage; Leavel’s Dolly never lets us forget what’s at stake in her quest for normalcy in this third act of her life. And Adam Heller’s thoughtful take on the wealthy, stubborn Horace Vandergelder is so sturdy, you actually get a sense that he just might end up getting the best of her for once. These two equal foils anchor the evening.
Much is also at stake for milliner Irene Molloy, played with depth and delicacy by Ruthie Ann Miles, who turns the ordinarily pleasant “Ribbons Down My Back” into an earnest yearning for one last chance at romance. Beyond that, her Tony-winning gravitas as Lady Thiang in The King and I doesn’t prepare one for the quick wit and comic timing we find here; Miles gets laughs I never knew were in Irene before. She’s beautifully paired with the winning, limber-limbed Cornelius of Matt Doyle (his Tony came from the gender-bent Company), both getting delightful support from Davey Fried and Susana Cordón as the naïve second couple.
Ogunquit’s fabled production values are much in evidence here. Leon Dobkowski’s elaborate costume plot is as alert to class distinctions as to the expected splashes of color and style, and David L. Arsenault’s settings evoke the period with efficiency. William Carlos Angulo’s dancers are clearly dancer-actors, executing the athletic choreography with genuine attention to character.
At one puzzling moment, director Burrows has Vandergelder hightailing it off stage midway through “So Long, Dearie,” leaving Dolly with no one to castigate and no reason to keep singing. I know he has a quick change, but honestly, if she and Angulo can give the illusion of a full-out parade with a mere cast of 24, surely they could find a way to keep Horace around till she’s done kicking his butt. And if that is the biggest complaint to make about the staging, you know this take on Hello, Dolly! is special indeed. You will be fortunate to catch this parade before it passes by.
Hello, Dolly opened June 23, 2026, at the Ogunquit Playhouse [Ogunquit, Maine] and runs through July 18. Tickets and information: ogunquitplayhouse.org
