Hello Dolly…Hello Laughter!!

Now that the pandemic is over, it most definitely is time to laugh, and the Village Theatre’s excellent production of Hello Dolly, provides just such an opportunity. From start to finish, this production, expertly directed by Timothy McCuen Piggee, was sheer entertainment from opening number to the final curtain call.

Most people probably know Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, winner of a Pulitzer, a Tony, and a Drama Desk award. With thousands of productions from high school theatre to Broadway, it even has a street in New Hampshire dedicated to it. If you don’t know it, don’t worry, you can still watch Pony World Theatre’s production without a hitch, as it sets up its audience with a summary of the original Our Town before diving into their rendition. Wilder’s play takes place in the small town of New Hampshire, Grover’s Corners, where nothing really happens in the relative peacefulness of the early 1900s. As such, the play is about community and small towns and appreciating even the uneventful in life.

The play offers some great sight gags, slapstick humor, lots of restrained late Victorian flirting and just enough touching moments to keep the works from gumming up too badly on an overdose of sugar.