'Hello, Dolly' at the Aronoff is a glorious journey in a theatrical time machine

“Hello, Dolly!” opened a two-week run at the Aronoff Center Tuesday night as part of the Broadway in Cincinnati series.

It’s a little like taking a glorious journey in a theatrical time machine. It’s an old show filled with all those “old show” traits like an expansive overture and low-tech sets and a score chockful of songs whose melodies you may actually remember.

So in some regards, “Hello, Dolly!” is a little antiquated.

After all, Broadway has changed mightily since “Hello, Dolly!” premiered in 1964. Shows like “Wicked” or ”Hamilton” or “Les Misérables” would have been beyond anyone’s imagination back then.

So if you are one of those audience members committed to shows that break the mold of tradition, you probably ought to stay away. But you’d be denying yourself a marvelous treat. Because this 2017 revival is delightfully extravagant, filled with broad humor, powerhouse dancing and costumes that look like they escaped from a widescreen Technicolor movie.

The story is based on a 1954 Thornton Wilder play called ”The Matchmaker.” The leading character, Dolly Levi, is a wheeling and dealing widow who is an 1885 version of a dating app. A decade later, legendary Broadway producer David Merrick and director/choreographer Gower Champion collaborated with Michael Stewart (script) and Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) to turn the tale into a tuneful, dance-filled vehicle for Carol Channing.

Over the years, many larger-than-life Broadway stars have stepped into the role, including Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey and Bette Midler. Even Barbra Streisand got into the act by starring in the movie version.

This production doesn’t have a big-name superstar in the role. That’s not to suggest that Carolee Carmello isn’t up to snuff. She can sing, is a formidable comic and, when it gets to a showstopper like “Before the Parade Passes By,” she proves that she can belt it out with the best of them.

But because she doesn’t come with the built-in star-power of those earlier performers, she actually has to act. And she has to be part of a fully-balanced cast. The result is a production that is more evenly balanced than I remember from the past.

Carmello is blessed with an energetic and charismatic supporting cast filled with actors who can actually sing and dance, particularly Daniel Beeman and Sean Burns (Cornelius and Barnaby), Analisa Leaming (Irene Molloy), Laura Sky Herman and Colin LeMoine (Ermengarde and Ambrose) and, even though he’s not called on to do much dancing, John Bolton as Dolly’s leading man, the rough-around-the-edges Horace Vandergelder.

Director Jerry Zaks pulls off a nimble balancing act, cobbling together a decidedly modern show out of shtick that has one foot in vaudeville and the other in the zany, fast-paced Kaufman & Hart comedies of the 1930s.

The same goes for choreographer Warren Coyle, who has maintained a sizeable amount of Gower Champion’s original choreography, especially in “The Waiters’ Gallop,” which is surely one of the most dazzling and intricate dance numbers in all of musical theater. But at the same time, he has invested other scenes with some much-needed zip.

There are no fancy effects with “Dolly.” It doesn’t need them. All you do is launch another of the show’s many memorable songs; “It Takes a Woman,” “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” “Ribbons Down My Back,” “Elegance” and, of course, “Hello, Dolly.”

Some folks may be offended by the male characters’ attitudes that women should be subservient to them. But this is a show that is built around forceful female characters. So despite the women’s desires to be married, no one could possibly question who has the power in “Hello, Dolly!” It’s the women. Every one of them. There’s nothing antiquated about that.

“Hello, Dolly!” runs through Dec. 15 at the Aronoff Center, Downtown.