Guys and Dolls

Having said recently and in print that I never again need to see the musical "Guys and Dolls", (a show I know so well that I could recite half of the dialogue) I am nonetheless thrilled by the Barrington Stage Company's superb revival. I find myself incapable of writing a single contraction as I comment on what I have just experienced. Exactly as the Damon Runyon characters speak, so must I write, so palpable is the influence of one of the most perfectly constructed shows ever to grace the stages of the nation.

Surely all are familiar with the two romances portrayed in this Broadway fable. Miss Adelaide, after 14 years engaged to Nathan Detroit, has a seemingly incurable list of upper respiratory symptoms. Nathan is ever on the lookout for a new location for his Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game (in New York). Miss Sarah Brown leads her uniformed companions on the Lord's mission to save sinners in the heart of the sinning-est city in the world. Sky Masterson will take the unusual bet and always emerge a winner for his Luck is a Lady.

Frank Loesser's songs are a string of hits-become-standards, the sort of songs you could hear Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Della Reese, Barbara Cook, and just about everyone else sing for years after on the radio, in elevators, and in restaurants. Eight of them, at least, are inescapable.

So much familiarity should leave an experienced theater-goer deflated and bored, but the cast does such a wonderful job of reinventing the familiar that boredom loses its potential and the mind and heart inflates with joy at the timelessness of what is being presented.

Enough accolades already! On to the real hard stuff: the tangible conferring of approval!

Michael Thomas Holmes is a perfect Nathan Detroit, as good as, if not better than, Sam Levene, Walter Matthau, Alan King, Robert Guillaume, and Nathan Lane, and much better than Oliver Platt. Holmes is a short charmer with a lovely voice and a hyper personality; a truly perfect Nathan.

Leslie Kritzer shines as Miss Adelaide; shines as brightly as Vivian Blaine, Helen Gallagher, Sheila MacRae, Faith Prince. Her touching performance in the duet "Sue Me" with Nathan is a tear-inducer; you cry through your laughter.

Morgan James is a strong contender as Sgt. Sarah Brown of the Salvation Army, as good as Isabel Bigley, Leila Martin, Anita Gillette, or anyone else including Jean Simmons in the film. Her voice is lyrical and her body a symphony of sharps and flats. It is easy to believe that her resolute reactions to the sinners around her are genuine and so is her love when she chooses to give it.

Matthew Risch plays Sky Masterson as seductively as Robert Alda, Jerry Orbach, or Peter Gallagher. His looks are not glamorous or pretty, but his effect on women, in this role, is devastating both on-stage and off.

These four principals are joined by a company of players who manage to eclipse many of my memories of the earlier productions I've seen. While no one can surpass the original Nicely-Nicely Johnson as played by Stubby Kaye, or even Ken Page in the all-black revival in 1976, Daniel Marcus turns in a glorious performance in this current production and his rendition of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" is up there with the greatest.

Tommy Bracco is fun as Harry the Horse, Michael Nichols is a classic Big Jule, Timothy Shew is a wonderful Benny Southstreet, Correy West an excellent Rusty Charlie, Gordon Stanley a perfect Arvide Abernathy, and Peggy Pharr Wilson a very nearly soignee General Cartwright.

The ensemble are a remarkably versatile group singing, dancing, and portraying characters of all types. There are more back flips in this show than there are in any five others that I can think of.

Choreographer Joshua Bergasse shows his talents off well in the two lengthy ballets as well as in the opening ensemble number and working hand-in-hand with the director John Rando has orchestrated with bodies what is lacking in Darren Cohen's limited orchestra pit. The eight musicians deliver nicely but the richness of the score is slightly undermined by the limitations of the musical collaboration.

The stage pictures, though, are so distracting that the music seems to drift up from some mythical subway line running underneath the streets of the city itself.

That city is richly served up in the sets designed by Alexander Dodge. Alejo Vietti's costumes are so good that the period of the show is never truly established, which lends a certain credence to the timelessness of the work itself. Rui Rita provides the finest lighting plot of the season thus far managing to capture our attention on one part of the stage while ultimately impressive changes are being made to the settings. Even the ugly microphones drift into an embargoed oblivion in the fine sound design work of Ed Chapman.

Barrington Stage Comany's production of "Guys and Dolls" offers the opportunity to see one of the greatest shows ever written and produced in a production that shows you why it has had five Broadway revivals when other very good shows haven't even had one.

This show helped fire up the careers of Peter Gennaro, Onna White, Scott Merrill, Gretchen Wyler, and a host of other talented performers. And this revival should similarly launch the careers of many people at Barrington Stage. See them now, before Broadway snatches them up.