Wispy 'Hello, Dolly!' is showing its old age

It is an apt coincidence that "Hello, Dolly!" hit Broadway on Jan. 16, 1964 — three weeks before the Beatles landed a few blocks away and blew away the generations with a statement of youth.

"Dolly" built its flimsy entertainment on values that even in 1964 cast back over the decades to the days of corsets and ribboned hats, bumbling men and subservient women.

That "Dolly" became for a while the longest-running show on Broadway and the winner of 10 Tonys testifies to one great song and the outrageous character created by Carol Channing. When she stepped away from the role, others stepped in to keep the vehicle running.

Chanhassen Dinner Theatre has revived this slight farce, and, as a night at the museum, "Hello, Dolly!" has its charms. Director Michael Brindisi is unsurpassed in creating pictures and brisk pacing. Nanya Ramey's multilevel set, dotted with curlicue ironwork, adds depth and dimension. Rich Hamson's costumes will satisfy any fin de siècle enthusiast. Tamara Kangas Erickson's elegant choreography has neat moments of invention. Andrew Cooke has a nine-piece ensemble in sonic perfection.

As if it matters, "Hello, Dolly!" revolves around a widow who matches men and women for marriage. Through a series of cartoonish scenes, Dolly manipulates herself into the arms of a rich merchant and sets up a couple of young romances.

Brindisi has the show singing and dancing well — Chanhassen signatures — with a familiar cast. Yes, that is Keith Rice blustering through the perorations of Horace Vandergelder, frustrated, stingy and ready to ruin some woman's life by marrying her.

Cat Brindisi, playing Irene Molloy, returns to the Chanhassen stage a grown woman of stature and voice. Tyler Michaels' Cornelius reminds us of the young Dick Van Dyke with his physical humor and nimble feet. He and Cat Brindisi are lovely and youthful and match voices perfectly in "It Only Takes a Moment."

If there is a question for Barber's performance, it is the volume of her personality. Channing and the others essentially hijacked the show and erased the membrane between persona and character. Barber, on the other hand, is very much within the role — which she plays with aplomb.

Do not come looking for depth or resonance. Near the end, the dialogue quotes Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker," on which the musical is based. We find it difficult to take Wilder's ideas on adventure, wealth and youth seriously when we have been treated to such songs as "It Takes a Woman." ("It takes a woman, all powdered and pink, to joyously clean out the drain in the sink.")

Composer Jerry Herman and playwright Michael Stewart whipped up a wafer-thin confection using ingredients left over from the previous century. And now we are in a new millennium, one in which even the innovations of 1964 seem ancient (is Paul McCartney really 72?) — much less the customs of 1890.

The energy, color and life that Michael Brindisi puts to this effort at least give "Dolly" a Chanhassen chance. You must be willing, however, to leap past a wispy and creaky scenario. My legs are too old to make that jump, and I can't remember where I put that liniment bottle.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299