I don't want to take anything away from the unassailable work of Hello, Dolly!'s cast and crew at Capital Playhouse. Almost to a person, they're knocking themselves dead out there. It's amazing, truly, what these performers can do. Gwen Haw inhabits the role of matchmaker Dolly Levi, so closely identified with Carol Channing, and makes it her own. She sings and dances beautifully, as does Bailey Boyd, who does some of her best-ever character work as nasal Minnie Fay. Sean Stinnet and Patrick Wigren bound amiably through two very busy acts, and Michael Self spins a variation on his excellent Scrooge as crabby Horace Vandergelder. The ensemble is first rate as it sails through insanely difficult choreography by Dolly's original director, Gower Champion. Bruce Haasl's set is a pink confection. The costumes (with the possible exception of one unmanageable hat) are fantastic. Director Kevin P. Hill worked wonders, and his stars have never looked better.

I hope you'll keep that in mind as I explain why I hated their show.

Somebody, somewhere is the absolute best living blacksmith. Someone is the world's greatest telegraph operator, and someone makes the finest grandfather clock. They all do amazing work ... that you don't need.

Every aspect of this play seems unearthed from Broadway's distant past. Performers are blocked to mug directly at the audience, and they struggle to wring comic value from setups that were paleolithic when Grandpa wore short pants. Dolly's based on a Thornton Wilder story about the 1890s, but it makes Wilder's Our Town look like The Sopranos. It's too hokey for Disneyland. My wife snorted when a suffragette appeared, because it was the first sign the writers had ever met an actual woman. Every song gets an immediate reprise, whether we want that or not.

Don't get me wrong, there are people out there who adore this stuff; a woman in the front row loved it so audibly we suspected she was a plant. But it's all so damn dated, at a cellular level no technical proficiency can obscure, that I suspect when people say they hate Broadway they're referring to either this show, museum pieces like it, or Cats.

So if you're one of those few remaining Broadway babies who miss the production styles of 60 years ago, then by all means, run, don't walk to Capital Playhouse's reincarnation of Hello, Dolly! Otherwise, I advise you to wait for The Full Monty next month and what promises to be a fascinating season next year.

[Capital Playhouse, Hello, Dolly!, $30-$39, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through April 1, 612 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia, 360.943.2744]