Review – Guys and Dolls (2008)

“Operatic Society Rolls a Winner with Charming Guys and Dolls”

Published: November 23, 2008

Your high school did it. Your mom’s high school did it. And so did your granddad’s.

We all know it better than the name of the bully who “wedgy-ed” us back in Grade 8. Yet there’s a reason this Frank Loesser musical has been a perennial favourite since 1950. It’s fun, the script is rather witty and the songs are - as Tony the Tiger used to say – grrr-ate!

The Victoria Operatic Society just opened a credible version of Guys and Dolls. It’s true that, at time, the pacing slows. And the main set, a cityscape, is curiously uninspired. What makes the cogs whirl much of the time is the show’s reliance on some of VOS’s tried and true regulars.

Many of the famous songs and scenes are successful, although as a whole this production, directed by Chris Moss, has het to shift into top gear.

There’s little point in detailing the plot of Guys and Dolls, branded on most of our brains in detail, along with memories of bag-lunches in the school cafeteria. For those who somehow missed this rite of passage, (Guys and Dolls, not the bagged lunches) Nathan Detroit is a small-town New York hood organizing a crap game. His financee of 14 years, Miss Adelaide, is conniving to get him to the altar. Meanwhile, a brainier hustler, Sky Masterson, finds he’s fallen in love with an unlikely lass: Sarah Brown, a member of the Save-a-Soul street mission.

Naturally, everyone talks like a Damon Runyon character (in fact the musical is based on Runyon’s yarns). So for instance, when Save-a-Soul seems low on repenting sinners, Sky declares: “This mission is layin’ an egg!”

Parts of this VOS production did impress on Friday night – many of the familiar scenes and numbers work.

There was, for example, a well choreographed dance/fight routine at the Havana nightclub where Sky has taken Sarah for an illicit dinner and Bacardi-laced drinks. The dancing here – bold and confident – was more fully realized than that of other scenes.

Afterward, Tara Britt delivered a superior version of Sarah’s inebriated paen to love, If I Were a Bell, succeeding especially with her rubato phrasing and confident ability to drunkenly tumble into Sky’s arms.

Jeff Stephen, a Camosun College engineering instructor by day, has had the lead roles in a number of VOS shows. As Sky Masterson, he sings quite well. What I noticed particularily in this production is that Stephen is becoming a good actor. Having square-jawed Nick Nolte good looks doesn’t hurt, of course. Yet this performer also moves and speaks well, bringing a level of nuance to his role matched by few others.

Stephen brought bona fide believability to the gambling scene in the sewer, pulling off, Luck be a Lady as much through sheer intensity and bravado as anything else.

That scene, by the way, benefited from a few bold stage elements – giant drainpipes, effective lighting on the stage’s back wall. The Havana scene, too, worked well with just simple, well-chosen props and light effects.

One can see why Colleen Sullivan Mares was cast as Miss Adelaide. Mare is a confident performer who did well as the cutey-pie moll. On occasion, Mares’s tendency to mug and camp risked making Guys and Dolls even more of a caricature than it is. Still, she and others from the Hot Box club were notable in such numbers as Take Back Your Mink.

No one performed better than Craig Wilson. As Nicely-Nicely Johnson, he takes on a smaller role than in previous VOS musicals. Yet Wilson always impresses with his ability to instantly turn it on like a 10,000-kilowatt bulb. His movements are sharp and theatrical, his singing passionate and exciting. This is a performer who truly understands the American musical, reaching a level of professional rare in community theatre.

With a live pit orchestra and a large troupe that truly replicates a cast-of-thousands feel, this Guys and Dolls has considerable appeal and charm. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of the VOS’s best shows (Sweeney Todd comes to mind), but will satisfy and entertain many.