Hello Dolly!
South Canterbury Drama League
The Playhouse Theatre
July 24
After a 52-year absence from Timaru stages, the meddling mayhem of Dolly Levi is back in full force.
The South Canterbury Drama League first staged Hello Dolly! in 1973, and appears to have relished the opportunity to stage it once more as its yearly musical theatre production.
The story follows widowed matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi and her meddlesome antics as she attempts to marry the wealthy half-a-millionaire Horace Vandergelder.
The stage was instantly set upon entering The Playhouse, as a young man in costume invited audience members into an impressively decorated foyer.
The auditorium area itself was also decorated in a way to make the audience feel as though they had been transported straight into a heightened Gilded Age New York.
Under the direction of TJ Ramsay, the entire production flowed smoothly from beginning to end, each character was fully-realised and not a single dull moment was had throughout the production’s two-hour run time.
As someone unfamiliar with the original text, I found the story extremely easy to follow, and become invested in the stakes of each character.
The cast was full of recognisable local talent and with many having performed together in the past, an innate sense of chemistry between the performers was very apparent.
Suzan Anderson tackled the complex character of Dolly Levi with an incredible amount of sass and bravado, and had the audience captivated any time she was on stage.
Anderson’s performance was expertly mirrored by George Hollinsworth as Horace Vandergelder, who brought a level of groundedness and gruffness, but also sincerity that helped balance the chaos and whimsy going on around him.
Speaking of chaos and whimsy: Cameron Lines and Luke Robb as Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker were the harbingers of them.
The pair had the audience in fits of laughter with their high-energy physical comedy and attempt to control (but really add to) the messy situation their characters constantly found themselves in.
The musical direction of Ella Thomas and the choreography of Bronwyn Chittock ensured that each musical number was knocked out of the park.
The ensemble were tight, energetic and both sounded and looked fantastic.
As has come to be expected from the South Canterbury Drama League, the costumes and set pieces were on another level.
Scenic artist Debbie Preston, the hat and hair team of Samantha Molyneux and Stevie Gallagher and costumer Ashley Campbell should all take a massive bow.
Hello Dolly! was simply a spectacle, in all senses of the word.
