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| Jordan Grubb, Noah Plomgren & Scott Cote in "Guys and Dolls" (photo: Diane Sobolewski) |
You know you're not in Kansas anymore when the opening
number of a musical is entitled “Fugue for Tinhorns”. Goodspeed
Opera House's first production of the season is the much-beloved 1950
musical “Guys and Dolls, A Musical Fable of Broadway”, with Music
and Lyrics by Frank Loesser and Book by Abe Burrows (who rewrote the
book by Jo Swerling) based on the popular underworld stories of Damon
Runyon. Its original Broadway incarnation won five Tony Awards
including Best Musical, and ran for an incredible1200 performances.
It also was chosen to receive the Pulitzer Prize, until the Pulitzer
board learned of Burrows' contretemps with the House Un-American
Activities Committee. It has seen several successful revivals since,
and was made into a largely forgettable 1955 film that miscast Marlon
Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra. The play, praised for its
faithfulness to the source material in style, characterizations and
above all Runyon's depiction of the patois of the world of
really-off-track-betting, it has endured in large part due to its
unbelievably melodic and topical score. Besides its title song, there
are such wonderful hits as “Luck Be a Lady”, “I've Never Been
in Love Before”, “I'll Know (When My Love Comes Along)”, and
“If I Were a Bell.” Then there are the comic songs such as “Sit
Down You're Rockin' the Boat”, “Sue Me”, “The Oldest
Established (Permanent Floating Crap Game)” and, perhaps the
ultimate showstopper, “Adelaide's Lament”. It's no wonder most
experts include it as one of the handful of all-time best Broadway
musicals.
The musical magic begins, as noted above, with that
groundbreaking opener, “Fugue for Tinhorns”, a very complex (for
Broadway, anyway) contrapuntal composition that perfectly sets up the
story to follow. Having been thrown out of the local Save-a-Soul
Mission for conducting an illegal crap game there, Nicely-Nicely
Johnson (Scott Cote), Rusty Charlie (Jordan Grubb) and Benny
Southstreet (Noah Plomgren) and their boss Nathan Detroit (Mark
Price) need money to relocate, so Nathan makes a bet with inveterate
gambler Sky Masterson (Tony Roach) about taking a “doll” to
dinner in Havana (how topical), with Sergeant Sarah Brown (Manna
Nichols) of the mission as the target of the bet. Nathan leaves to
attend the night club act of his “doll”, Adelaide (Nancy
Anderson) while Sky makes a very unsuccessful play for Sarah, even
though promising to send the mission a dozen sinners. Sarah relents
under pressure from her boss, General Cartwright (Karen Murphy) to
produce genuine sinners, and flies off to Cuba with Sky, realizing
once there (in Bacardi veritas) that she's in love with him.
On their return, she realizes just where the floating game drifted,
namely her beloved mission, and assumes that's why Sky got her out of
town. She complains to her mission co-worker, Arvide (John Jellison),
but he urges her to follow her heart. Meanwhile in the sewers of the
city, Sky falsely states that he failed to take Sarah to Cuba and
makes a bet to all present, including Chicago gangster Big Julie
(Jerry Gallagher), of $1000 each against their attendance at the
mission. Sky wins, the gamblers attend a mission service, the local
cops led by Lt. Brannigan (David Sitler) are satisfied, and everyone
ends up a winner, Sarah with Sky, Adelaide with Nathan.
Simple, yes? Deceptively so, as the show calls for a
secure grasp of what the Runyonland folk are really like, especially
with respect to the lower-level New York accents. (Many are those
amateur versions that “rock the boat” in the wrong way). It also
calls for respectful hands that can balance the seemly with the
seedy, the lyricism with the lowlifes. In this production, all of the
above are in quite capable hands. The Direction by Don Stephenson and
Choreography by Alex Sanchez are just plain marvelous, with
extraordinary attention to detail. The cast is uniformly great, with
excellent diction from all, most notably the hilarious Price and
Anderson (the latter unforgettable in her rendition of “Adelaide's
Lament”). The technical aspects, from the perfect Costume Design by
Tracy Christensen, the beautiful Set Design by Paul Tate de Poo III
(including a neon-lit Times Square complete with the old smoking
Camel billboard), expert Lighting Design by Stephen Terry, Sound
Design by Jay Hilton, Music Direction by Michael O'Flaherty, and
Orchestrations by Dan DeLange, all hit the high standard for which
Goodspeed is deservedly famous. It's a glorious night at the theater,
far above and beyond all the other floating crap games around.
And need one be gently reminded that, for Boston
residents, Goodspeed is a mere two hours away? You've got the house
right here. As for the prospects of this extraordinary show selling
out the house if you don't make your move soon: You betcha.
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