Broadway shows its age on Bette's big night out

IT WAS Broadway's biggest night of the year, but the cultural references came largely from years gone by.
Bette Midler accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for "Hello, Dolly!"Bette Midler accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for "Hello, Dolly!"
Bette Midler accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for "Hello, Dolly!"

The big winner at the Tony awards, the stage world’s Oscars, was Hello Dolly!, a revival of a hit from the 1960s, with Bette Midler reprising the role made famous by Barbra Streisand, as the 1930s Vaudeville star, Fanny Brice.

The actor Kevin Spacey, who hosted the event, chose former President Clinton and the legendary talk show host Johnny Carson, who retired 25 years ago, as the targets for his impressions - before launching into a song by the 1960s crooner, Bobby Darin.

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President Trump also came in for some ribbing, with a current talk show host Stephen Colbert comparing his administration to a Broadway show scheduled to run for four years but now likely to close sooner.

Miss Midler, during a long acceptance speech in which the orchestra tried to play her off, thanked “all the Tony voters, many of whom I’ve actually dated”, as she collected her award for best actress in a musical.

Other shows to be honoured included a musical version of part of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, called Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, and Dear Evan Hansen, a show about a lonely teenager who fabricates a friendship with a classmate who killed himself. It was named best musical, and its stars, Ben Platt and Rachel Bay Jones, were honoured for their performances.

The awards for leading actor and actress in a play went to Present Laughter star Kevin Kline, and, from A Doll’s House, Part 2, Laurie Metcalf, who beat Cate Blanchett.