Bugle boys and bugle beads

With one or two exceptions, I must admit I don't much care for the particular brand of musical comedy cornpone peddled by Jerry Herman. The exceptions are Mack and Mabel and Mame. Now, just admitting that probably puts me out of favor with a few folks who'll contend that La Cage aux Folles is an inviolable historic masterpiece and that if for nothing but the sheer audicity and longevity of its most famous star, Hello, Dolly is to the musical theatre canon as Hamlet is to the drama.

Yeah. Whatevs.

Anyway, for a variety of very good reasons, hardly anyone produces Mack and Mabel these days. Mame, on the other hand, is everywhere, God love her, although some Mrs. Dennis-Burnsides are better than others. I still love the show and, thanks to my uncanny abilities of selective perception, I can even watch most of the movie version while editing out the execrable performance by Lucille Ball on the fly.

With great anticipation, then, I braved the oppressive heat last night to see Dee Hoty assay the role at The Muny. I adore Dee (she's an alum of our stage and a bright talent) and couldn't wait to see her coax the blues right out of the horn.

Well: the direction was not very good, the scenic design was a bit of pretty mess, the costumes were hit or miss and there were a couple of very, very dubious casting decisions—look, I love, love, love Georgia Engel (another Rep alum, by the way), but putting her in the role of Agnes Gooch who (and I don't think I'm spoiling any suspense here) gets pregnant in Act II is a pretty wide chasm across which to ask the audience to stretch its suspension of disbelief.

But you know what? None of that really matters, because Dee Hoty was an utterly fabulous Mame and I may even sweat through another three hours to see her sing the role again, she's that good. (I'm not quite at the "Angela who?" point yet, but I could be soon.) There are a few fleeting moments where her emotional pitch seemed just a tad off, but I can't fathom she won't find the right note on that count by tonight or Wednesday. She's a sexy, indefatigable, jubilant Jazz baby and, once the wonderful Jeff McCarthy shows up as Beauregard, they make a thoroughly winsome stage pair.

In fact, the cast around Hoty is almost uniformly swell: McCarthy as Beau, Beth Leavel as Vera, Christian Probst (yep, a Rep rat) and Colin Donnell as the Patricks. Even as the apparently-biologically-miraculous Gooch, Engel is a gem.

See it and, if you can't in its Muny run through Sunday, watch the papers for any possibility that Dee Hoty will be taking up residence at a #3 Beekman Place in your neck of the woods. She's my new best girl, at least as far as this show is concerned.

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