Dr. Dolittle, The Musical

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

First of all, it is not Fair. That Man on stage looks like he’s 30 instead of 66. At 66 he is so fluid I cannot imagine he has a bone in his body. What an honor to once again witness the magic of Tommy Tune.

Tommy Tune and the company of Dr. Dolittle Photo by Joan Marcus

Clichéd as it is, Tommy Tune is indeed a legend in his own time. Forty years ago this 6', 6" frame dance legend burst onto the Broadway stage and hasn’t stopped having won more awards than one can count without taking a breath.

But this isn’t about Tommy Tune per se; it’s about the musical, Dr. Dolittle, playing through February 12 at the Temple Buell Theatre presented by Denver Center Attractions.

A wonderful story contained in 12 books written by Hugh Lofting who sitting in a muddy trench as a young lieutenant in the Irish Guard in 1917 struggled to write upbeat letters to his children. In the 1967 movie Rex Harrison put the story on the map, as the song “Talk To The Animals” ran away with the Oscar.

Dr. John P. Dolittle, a doctor who has nothing in common with the human race, discovers inadvertently he can talk with the animals. Learning over 200 fluent animal languages, he gets into major trouble with the law when he is accused of throwing a lady into the river. It wasn’t a lady; it was Sophie, (Elisa Van Duyne, Steven Wenslawski) the seal, suffering from aquatic melancholia following her captured and separation from Ernie, her fiancé. Dolittle meets her in a circus, understands her predicament, dresses her in a pink bonnet and pink shawl, rolls her to the bank in a baby stroller, sings her a wonderful song “When I look In Your Eyes,” before sending her on her way to reunite with Ernie. Yea, right. Who’s going to believe that story? Certainly not the officers who saw and arrested him; certainly not the judge and jury. In the books many come to Dolittle’s defense, including the Judge’s own dog, Rufus who has several unkind words to say about his master’s eating habits.

The stage production doesn’t go into that kind of detail. In fact, the stage production has been cut down to a simplified story line. Time, of course, is of the essence. Before the story actually begins, Dr. Doolittle introduces Jip the dancing dog (Allan Mangaser, Jessica Wu), and Jeffrey, his first animal patient who had strep throat, which needless to say “was a tall order.”

Eliminating initial introductions of Jip and Jeffrey, jumping immediately into the story, could easily have captured time for the story.

When Tune took over the “floundering” production, Dr. Dolittle suffered from amoebic traits of wandering all over the place. Of course, it had to be paired down to fit the stage. Of course, it couldn’t follow the detail of the movie. However, this production seems to have been squeezed to only a shadow of its former self, running without Intermission for around an hour and a half.

Dr. Dolittle has the making of becoming an astonishing stage production running in the likes of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. It has a whole lot of “animal speak” to go to even catch up to their dust. If children can sit through full-blown productions of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, they could most definitely sit through a full-blown production of Dr. Dolittle.

With her gorgeous beautiful voice, Dee Hoty shares the stage with Dolittle as Lady Emma Fairfax, who first finds this strange animal doctor absurd, impudent, and far below her “Ladydom” standing, until, of course, she falls in love with him. The spark between them shimmers even they are singing the most delightful song “You’re Impossible.”

Having staged this production and playing the lead role, Tune turned over the choreography to Patti Colombo since, and easily understood, he thought wearing too many hats slightly top heavy. Leslie Bricusse wrote music and lyrics for this show, and Lee Tannen wrote the revised Book.

The choreography is only one of the elements that slow down this production. Granted choreography is dictated by the music, which is another element that needs to be addressed. Individually, the 14 songs featured are delectably wonderful. Together they represent too much sameness. There needs to be more variety in the tempo and beat. This production features too many slow songs that are beautifully sung and presented, but something there is that calls for more melodic variety. More multiplicity within the music would automatically provide more creative room for the choreography to expand.

If I had a magic wand, I would like to see more interaction between and with the animals. Sarah Stiles brings Polynesia, the parrot to life. Opinionated, to say the least, there are long periods when Polynesia sits on her perch saying and doing nothing. Polynesia does not strike me as “someone” who would go very long without “squawking” about something.

With all of the technology now available to bring puppets to life, the animal beg to allow their personalities to flow through their handlers. It is not that they are going to upstage anyone. No one could upstage Tune no mater how hard they tried, and Hoty definitely holds her own. They do construct two person horse costumes that don’t exaggerate the obvious sway back. Yes Toggle (David F. M. Vaughn, Erin Webley) is old and needs bifocals, but the costume turned him into two people wearing the front and rear end of horse instead of emphasizing Toggle’s personality.

Jeffrey adds a great deal to the show introducing changes of scenes, times, and places. Whenever he sticks his neck out, he solicits fun giggles. Even technology could add to his personality by pumping fluidity into his neck and eyes and expressions. If Jeffrey could peak around the curtains first, he would solicit remarkable giggles rather than having an obvious plywood cutout pushed out on wheels with a sign hanging from his mouth.

There is no question Aaron Burr as Chee-Chee the Monkey can dance up a storm, but that’s exactly what he needs, a storm to dance to. His choreography calls for more monkeyshines in his all too quiet stance. For a monkey, Chee-Chee finds himself with too much quiet time.

Speaking of monkeys, I would like to see the monkeys have the ability for more lateral dancing during their Monkey-Monkey Island Dance. They need more and higher rocks to jump and leap onto. Some hanging vines would add to their personality. They like high places. I know, I had one once. The drumming was good for Monkey-Monkey Island, but they want more variety in the drumming which would give them more diversity in their choreography, adding more spark to their performance, adding more personality to their monkey shines.

The dance bunches them too close together when they have a huge stage to spread out to dance and express what monkeys do best, exhibit monkeyshines. Their costumes could be monkeyed around with also. Their large pink ears look like they are all wearing headphones.

One of the most delectable characters in the Dr. Dolittle story is the Pushmi/Pullyu (Scott Leiendecker, Jonathan Richard Sandler). Although the heads and necks of this intriguing rare animal does not disappoint, the middle caves in to nothingness, which definitely distracts from this amazing creature. The Pushmi/Pullyu arrives in a large crate as a two headed llama. Dolittle dreams of sailing the open seas to find the elusive Giant Pink Sea Snail, and the Pushmi/Pullyu provides the opportunity to become a part of the two-bit circus operated by Albert Blossom (Joel Blum) to finance his sea going odyssey.

A storm aptly fulfilled with creative lightening strikes and long sheets of billowing cloth, leaves Dolittle, the animals, and Lady Fairfax, who secretly stows away on the sea going vessel, on an island in the middle of nowhere. It is she who finds the Giant Pink Sea Snail, Jean-Pierre (Sander), and she who learns his language to Dolittle’s astonishment.

Although Jean-Pierre is wonderfully choreographed in his color with active antennas, why is he split down the middle? Of course, he has to be taken apart to load into a truck from city to city, but can’t he be pieced together so there isn’t an obvious slit cutting him in half? And if he can’t be pieced together, at least the slit could be covered with some kind of pink snail cloth. Something about seeing actors walking behind jean-Pierre through the crack distracts from the action. With his animated antennas, his personality could sllde more into perspective if his head and neck were allowed animation. He needs and wants more fluid personality (he told me). Snails are like that.

Even Tune himself addresses the fact that this production of Dr. Dolittle remains a work in progress, and with some serious creative light-hearted thought, this production could move from just being a good production to an awesome show sitting right next to The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. Granted, it requires additional green stuff that may not fall into animalistic animation but certainly has a big voice.

Is it worth seeing? You bet. Although simplified, the story is there, good strong talent appears, but given more variety, the talent could be stronger. Children are rather smart cookies and don’t need to have a story “pulled down to their level.” To see the graceful fluid Tommy Tune dance is worth every penny.

But then what do I know? For a show lasting around an hour and half, with an audience filled with children, and many very young, and not hear squirming, whining, crying, or fussiness of any kind tells a different kind of story. They were “enthrallingly” engaged, a welcomed barometer for any show.

At the end of Opening Night, Tune expressed gratitude for being able to come to Denver, wishing he could return at least once a decade. Would that we wouldn’t have to wait a decade for him to return. Tommy Tune is a national prize, and that’s the truth.