In last week’s post about the movie WALL-E (which you can read here) I made mention of the fact that one of the key musical moments from that film was a short clip of a song called “It Only Takes a Moment” that actually came from the movie version of the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! That short clip was something that WALL-E the robot had discovered while cleaning up the Earth’s garbage. The clip spoke to his robot heart about the power of companionship and how that was something that he desired to have in his own life. WALL-E may be a fictional story and his character may have been robotic, but the universal desire to go through life with someone by your side is something that is very real. Since the very beginning of time we humans have tended to be communal creatures. While I know that there are stories out there about people who build a cabin for themselves in the woods, or else erect a home on a deserted island and live contented lives of isolation and solitude, for the most part, we tend to gather in family groupings. We live in neighbourhoods with other family groupings. We gather together to work and to play, to mourn and to celebrate, to build and to dismantle. These groupings are built on a foundation of community, and at the centre of it all, we find personal partnerships. Couples. Lovers. Spouses. Soulmates. Partners. Label the connection what you will but the end result is that, for the most part, humans spend much of their lives in search of a loving match with whom to share the rest of their days. That was a large part of how the movie WALL-E unfolded. Not surprisingly, it is also a large part of the premise of the musical Hello, Dolly! upon which WALL-E placed so much of his trust. Since I have already spent more than enough time discussing the ins and outs of the movie WALL-E, I felt it would be appropriate to pivot toward WALL-E’s inspiration, Hello, Dolly!, to see what universal truths can be found there. Hopefully, by the time we are finished, we will know if WALL-E’s faith was well placed and why Hello, Dolly! remains as one of the most popular and successful Broadway musicals of all time. The lights are dimming. The curtain is rising. The show looks like it is about to begin. Enjoy.
Hello, Dolly! premiered on Broadway exactly seven weeks before I was born in late November of 1963. It is a musical that was actually an adaptation of an adaptation of an original story that was published in the mid-1800s. In 1835, a British playwright named John Oxenford created a play called A Day Well Spent. This play was deemed to be in the style of a farce. A farce is a specific type of story in which social commentary is given and social mores satirized under the guise of comedy. Not long after Oxenford’s play debuted, a German playwright named Johann Nestroy adapted the play into German and created a farce called He Will Go On a Spree or He Will Have Himself a Good Time. Nostroy’s farce remained the default version of this story for almost a full century until famed author Thornton Wilder decided to adapt Nostroy’s farce into a play entitled The Merchant of Yonkers. The Merchant of Yonkers fizzled at the box office and was soon updated, with key changes made by Wilder. It was renamed simply as The Matchmaker. When it came time to take this play to Broadway, The Matchmaker evolved into the musical that we know and love called Hello, Dolly! Despite the many iterations that this musical had gone through, the core elements of the story have remained the same since 1835. The story told in Hello, Dolly! is one in which the characters in the story search for love and companionship through the professional services of a matchmaker. For anyone unaware, the job of a matchmaker was to search for a suitable companion for the person who was paying to have the job performed on their behalf. A professional matchmaker could be a working-class person who just happened to be good at pairing up friends and acquaintances, but in the case of Hello, Dolly!, the matchmaker was a person who was comfortable moving in upper-class social circles. A century ago, there were no online dating apps. There were no classified companions ads in newspapers, either. When a well-to-do bachelor reached middle age and remained unattached and began thinking of future heirs and such, he would reach out to a professional matchmaker (usually a woman), who would discreetly arrange for the man to meet several eligible younger women. These women tended to come from good families, they would possess the appropriate level of social graces, and hopefully, they would also be physically attractive. Sometimes, these arranged matches would lead to actual love, but for the most part, pragmatic partnerships were what the end result turned out to be. If the matchmaker was successful in finding a life partner for her client, then she would be paid. The prestige with which the matchmaker was held in society was in direct proportion to the number of successful marriages she had arranged for her clients. In the world of Broadway, there is no greater or more successful matchmaker than Dolly Gallagher Levi.
The story behind Hello, Dolly! is one that is completely concerned with finding romantic partners in life. In the play, Dolly is hired to find a match for a business owner named Horace Vandergelder. Dolly is intent on matching herself up with Vandergelder because he is “half a millionaire” which back in those days meant that he was quite wealthy. But before she can make a match of herself and Vandergelder, she must appear to be matching him with eligible young women, as that is what she is expected to do. In the background of this main storyline are three separate but interconnected storylines involving Vandergelder’s niece, an aspiring artist, two of Vandergelder’s clerks from the office and two of the eligible young ladies that Dolly hires to meet Vandergelder. Through a series of comedic mishaps and some intentional ruses, the various characters mix and match their way through the musical, eventually all ending up with or without a partner, as the storyline sees fit. Through it all, the topics of social classes, bank balances and human compatibility all interweave to tell our tale. Without giving away any spoilers for those who may have seen neither the musical nor the film, the characters all get the endings that their storylines deserve. However, you can infer that there are, at least, some happy endings, because the musical Hello, Dolly! was a huge hit during the 1964 Broadway season. It won 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Actress for Carol Channing, who became a star because of this role. The Broadway cast recording for Hello, Dolly! went to the top of the Pop charts on radio due to the popularity of the title track “Hello, Dolly!. Although Carol Channing is forever associated with her role as Dolly, it was actually another version of this hit song that went all the way to the top of the charts. In that same year of 1964, Jazz legend Louis Armstrong covered the song. Despite Carol Channing becoming the face of the character Dolly Gallagher Levi, it was Louis Armstrong’s version of “Hello, Dolly!” that has gone on to become the definitive rendition of that hit song. In the links below, I will include both versions for your listening pleasure.
There are many reasons I have for being grateful for finding my wife and getting to live the life that we have created together. But one of the biggest is that we have saved each other from having to be “out there” in the dating world again. Mannnnnnn! I would not like to have to go through the process of finding a soulmate and life partner again. It was trouble enough the first time around. While I met some young ladies who turned out to be nice people, I also met many for whom a match with me would have been the worst thing in the world. I was never going to be a domineering man who controlled the world of my submissive partner. Nor was I going to be someone’s sugar daddy. Finally, I was never going to be six foot two with eyes of blue for someone for whom physical perfection was at the top of her list. I am who I am and my wife is who she is. Luckily for us both, we managed to find each other without the need of formal matchmaking services. I can’t imagine being out there today trying to navigate my way through the online/AI filled worlds of Tinder and Bumble and the numerous other online websites in the hopes of finding that romantic needle in a haystack again. I love my wife and I love my life. I have already won life’s lottery once. I do not care to gamble again. Sorry, Dolly! Your services are not required here.
The link to the official website for the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! can be found here. A large fan-created website can be found here.
The link to the videos for the song “Hello, Dolly!” as sung by Carol Channing as well as Louis Armstrong can both be found here and here.
If anyone feels the need or desire to check out the world of online dating, the links to the official websites for Tinder and Bumble can be found here and here.
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Yet another lovely start to the day. Halfway through reading this, I realized that although I loved the song Hello Dolly, I had actually never seen the movie or play.
It’s on my to watch list. As to the dating scene, like you, I shudder at the online options.
I remember watching the Barbra Streisand version as a much younger person. The play is alright as plays go. The song “Hello, Dolly!” was the highlight for me, even back then.