LOTS OF CHANGE AT the Shubert in January. Bette Midler leaving. Bernadette Peters arriving. Other cast members coming and going. But Santo Loquasto's perfect scenic design lives on.
"Whatever the theatrical equivalent of Technicolor might be, Santo Loquasto has discovered it in his sets and costumes," Charles McNulty wrote in The Los Angeles Times when the show opened last spring. McNulty went on to describe the scene above (Dolly Levi's big restaurant staircase entrance) in adoringly florid terms. "The almost obscene red of the stage curtain is matched by the harlot scarlet of the dress Dolly wears when she sashays down the Harmonia Gardens stairs."
Elsewhere in 1880s New York City, there's Irene Molloy's proper hat shop. Just the place for a joyous dance (from left, Kate Baldwin, Bette Midler, Beanie Feldstein and Taylor Trensch) and a little fibbing about who's wealthy and who's not.
Maybe the shop is what Hilton Als was thinking of when he wrote in The New Yorker that "Santo Loquasto’s costumes and sets for the current production are a little chintzy," but he quickly admitted that he "liked the music-hall feel of the piece."
Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times that the show had "been designed by Santo Loquasto to resemble a bank of Knickerbocker-themed department store Christmas windows." He found the "hot pastels" of both set and costumes a little aggressive.
Several critics commented on the deliberately old-fashioned aspects of Loquasto's work. And not just the rustic charm of Horace Vandergelder's feed store (above, inhabited by Midler and David Hyde Pierce in color-coordinated costumes, also by Loquasto).
Joe Dziemianowicz of The Daily News called the scenic design "bubbly and first-rate," pointing to the "mix of merry painted backdrops and set pieces." And Eben Shapiro, in Time's year-end roundup of 2017's best theater, went even further. "For scenic design geeks, the painted backdrops of turn-of-the century New York are practically worth the steep price of admission."
Who is Santo Loquasto? When I used to see his name in the credits as production designer for Woody Allen films, I imagined him as an exotic European discovery, maybe someone Fellini had worked with and Woody had abducted.
But no. Loquasto is an all-American boy, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1944 and a 1969 graduate of the Yale School of Drama. He did the costume design for "Dolly" as well and won a 2017 Tony for it. Past Broadway triumphs include "Cafe Crown" and "Grand Hotel."