STAGE REVIEW : Yorba Linda Cast Has Some Fun With ‘Dolly’

There are days when you wish one of those “classic” musicals would be approached a little subversively. How about putting the venerable “Hello, Dolly!” in a “Love Connection” mode? Let’s see, contemporize that old matchmaker Dolly Levi into a Chuck Woolery in skirt and high heels who uses television as much as her wiles to hook people up.

Too much? C’mon, the musical theater is suppose to be wild. Barring such radicalism, any handling of “Hello, Dolly!” had better be full of jump and at least a little sly. At the Forum Theatre in Yorba Linda, director Ray Limon doesn’t veer from Michael Stewart’s original book, but he does mix in all the necessary ingredients for fun.

The Yorba Linda Musical Theatre production has humor and a cast that throws itself into the fray, using playful acting and attention to Jerry Herman’s unspectacular but sprightly score to achieve good results. The show may not always surprise, but it does entertain.

For anyone not familiar with the show (based on Thornton Wilder’s play, “The Matchmaker”), Dolly is a major busybody who rumbles through 1890s New York society arranging marriages for the lonely and widowed. Her most important client is Horace Vandergelder, a “half-millionaire” Yonkers businessman with as much class as a potato.

Dolly has pushed Vandergelder toward Irene Molloy, a stylish Manhattanite with a fancy hat shop. But Dolly has second thoughts and decides to land this moneyed hick for herself. That’s when the hi-jinks start.

Sylvia Lavoie Miller’s Dolly is good at hi-jinks. Miller plays her broad and brassy, a gal with manipulation on her mind but enough softness to be likable. As Vandergelder, Jim Trebilcox is a no-nonsense grump, just the right foil for Miller’s nonsense.

Denyce Rossman gives Molloy a certain classiness and Steve Glaudini’s Barnaby Tucker is appropriately manic. The most invigorating performances are left to Diane Freiman as the dim but buoyant Minnie Fay and Jim Graft as Cornelius Hackl, Vandergelder’s chief clerk who, at 27, is still waiting to kiss a girl.

The production benefits from Greg Hendrickson’s bright sets and Cheryl McCaleb’s Popsicle-colored costumes.

‘HELLO, DOLLY!’

A Yorba Linda Musical Theatre production of the Jerry Herman/Michael Stewart musical. Directed by Ray Limon. With Sylvia Lavoie Miller, Mary Wilson, Chris Durbin, Jim Trebilcox, Catherine Scholl, Jim Graft, Steve Glaudini, Denyce Rossman, Diane Freiman, Helen Whitney and Richard Miller. Choreography by Ray Limon. Musical direction by Mark Henson. Sets by Greg Hendrickson. Costumes by Cheryl McCaleb. Lighting by Robert A. Wilson. Plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m, Sundays at 2 p.m. through June 17 at the Forum Theatre, 4175 Fairmont Blvd., Yorba Linda. Tickets: $10, general; $8, children and seniors. Information: (714) 779-8591.