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by Frank Loesser, directed by Kelly Robinson

Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford

June 3-November 7, 2004

"Luck is a Lady"

The Stratford Festival has a winner in the Frank Loesser musical “Guys and Dolls”.  Director Kelly Robinson and his talented cast have captured the spirit of this classic musical for an evening of irresistible fun. 

Stratford last presented “Guys and Dolls” in 1990 directed and choreographed by Brian McDonald and designed by Susan Benson.  That, too, was a great success.  In general, this production is better and acted and directed, the earlier one better choreographed and designed though neither has or had a perfect cast.  If you enjoyed the 1990 production you will enjoy this one, too, and will see why this is one of the greatest musical comedies ever written.

The show is set in the mythical New York underworld created by Damon Runyon of criminals and showgirls, where no one swears, where “girl” rhymes with “boil” and lowlifes try to elevate their speech with polysyllables they don’t understand.  This is 1950 when the goal of gangster, chlorine or Sally Ann girl is marriage, children and a house in the country.  Loesser justly subtitled the show “A Musical Fable”. 

This is one of those rare musicals where the plot is clever, the dialogue, mostly by Abe Burrows, itself is funny, the lyrics are witty and the music is bright and daring.  The actors sing with such clear enunciation that this is the first time since the famous Gilbert and Sullivan series in the 1980s that I have heard an audience laugh out loud at witty lyrics. 

The production’s main flaw is Debra Hanson’s design.  The floor of the Festival stage for the musicals has expanded throughout the years until now it is about as big as it can possibly get.  You’d hate to sit in the front row seats because all you’d see are the soles of the dancers’ feet.  The three-arched set suggesting the trestle for an elevated train is attractive only in the dark when the neon signs crowded above it are turned on.  I never got used to the sickly pea-soup green of the massive floor.  Where Benson’s costumes had a witty simplicity, Hanson’s are overblown and garish.  Geordie Johnson playing Nathan Detroit looks lost in his overlarge suit, the tunics for the down-and-out Salvation Army members all seemed to be brand new and dancers, including Sheila McCarthy, stumble over their gowns in the big Hot Box number “Take Back Your Mink”.

The other flaw is the miscasting of Geordie Johnson.  Johnson is best known for portraits of conflicted characters in modern drama, not for comedy, much less for musicals.  He never gets the hang of the New-Yorkese dialect or how to deliver the lines for comic effect.  Sunken as he is in his costume, he never has the stage presence that even some of the shorter non-speaking dancers do.  To compensate he gesticulates wildly but that has the negative effect of undercutting his speech.

Otherwise, the casting is very strong.  Cynthia Dale gives one of her best ever performances as Sarah Brown, the Sally Ann girl who falls for gangster Sky Masterson.  Up to now, one might have thought “perky” was all Dale could do.  But watch her slowly get drunk and disorderly in the Cuban scene and you’ll see how very funny she can be.  She also seems far more engaged with the changing moods of her songs than she has in previous musicals.  Scott Wentworth, reprising his role as Sky Masterson from 1990, is actually even better than he was then.  He’s grown in authority, commanding the stage whenever he appears, and his singing, still strong, has more character.  Sheila McCarthy is an absolute delight as Miss Adelaide.  Her timing in delivering a comic line is second to none.  She doesn’t just give us the usual Adelaide as ditzy showgirl but instead wrings a surprising poignancy from the role.  Adelaide’s outer silliness hides a real inner hurt at having been put off for fourteen years by Nathan, her marriage-shy “fiancé”.  McCarthy single-handedly gives this raucous fable a sense of heart.

The other roles are all well cast.  Bruce Dow with his spot-on delivery is super as Nicely-Nicely and he shines in his big number “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat”.  Shawn Wright holds his own as Nicely’s companion Benny Southstreet.  Douglas Chamberlain, reprising the role of Sarah’s grandfather, Arvide Abernathy, is all warmth and good humour, and Patricia Collins is suitably imposing as the strict General Cartwright.  When these two break down and dance in the big “Sit Down” number, the crowd goes wild.

Robinson has directed the show with detail and panache.  He pays uncommon attention to the dialogue ensuring it as funny as the songs so that comic momentum of the piece increases as it rolls on.  Michael Lichtefeld’s choreography shows more imagination for the men’s dances than the women’s, especially in  “The Crapshooters’ Dance” of Act 2 featuring the acrobatics of brothers Jason and Julius Sermonia.  The Cuban nightclub scene, so memorable in Brian MacDonald’s production, here is set during Carnival.  This crams the stage with people in costume but not the spectacular dancing the music demands.

The production has its flaws, but Robinson and the cast have caught the tone of the piece so well you probably won’t care.  It leaves you with such a positive rush, you can see why musicals, when this well performed, can be so addictive.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Cynthia Dale and Sheila McCarthy. ©2004 Stratford Festival.