If there is a
musical comedy masterpiece, it is Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows, and Jo Swerling’s
Guys
and Dolls. Swerling and Burrows’book adapts Damon Runyon’s stories offunny, flavorful lowlifes with wit and
zest. Loesser’s tasty lyrics and wonderful music are even better in the
plot-oriented songs that have no life outside this show than the standard
popular numbers, like “I’ll Know When My Love Comes Along,” “I’ve Never Been in
Love Before,” “I Love You A Bushel and a Peck,” or “If I Were a Bell.” Actors
relish the rolesthey play to sing “I
Got A Horse Right Here,” or “A Person Could Develop A Cold,” and the
show-stopping “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”
I think a bad
version of Guys and Dolls would be a
pleasure, so Stratford’s top-of-the-line treatment is a delight. I did like
Brian MacDonald’s 1990 production at Stratford better. But the show is worth
redoing, and Kelly Robinson shapes a winning revival with the help of Michael
Lichtefeld’s choreography, Berthold Carriere’s always top-notch musical
direction, Debra Hanson’s playful designs, and with the same Sky Masterson.
Cynthia Dale
is a revelation as Sarah Brown, the Salvation Army lass. Dale always sings
gloriously and acts well, but here she turns out to be the funniest Sarah I’ve
seen, and, of course, one of the most beautiful. Her drunk scene in Havana is a
treat. Scott Wentworth has got slyer and craftier along with older, but is no
less appealing as Sky and sings and dances “Luck, Be a Lady” well enough to
dominate Robinson and Lichtefeld’s show-stopping dance number.
Geordie
Johnson is an oddly glamorous Nathan Detroit, but sells that gambler’s “Sue Me”
with raffish charm. As his long-suffering Adelaide, Sheila McCarthy has a fine
time switching from flashy showgirl to neurotic with a nasal drip — all
caricature, and all right on the money.
Bruce Dow’s
amusing Nicely-Nicely Johnson is almost overpowered by his dazzling tenor
singing. Douglas Chamberlain’s dry Salvation Army veteran Arvide Abernathy
rises with artful understatement to turn his fond “More I Cannot Wish You” into
an art song.
And a big cast
of adorably raunchy characters brings the show to triumphant life. There’s an
almost religious fervor in their awed choral anthem to “The oldest established,
permanent, floating crap game in New York.”
There’s
nothing wrong with John Woods’ revival of Macbeth; it just lives up to the
reputation of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play” (theater folk superstitiously don’t
like to even say its title) as impossible to play successfully. I’ve seen at
least a dozen Macbeths. Some were in
great productions, some had a great Macbeth, some had a great Lady Macbeth —
and none with even two of the above.
Woods’
direction is workmanlike and unremarkable, except for Lady Macbeth’s
sleepwalking scene in which I felt sorry for Lucy Peacock. She had to try to
make sense of such peculiarly stylized business as constant dithering of her
hands and slowly wrapping herself in a floor cloth.
John
Ferguson’s designs are appropriately dark and drab, though it would seem to
make more sense to highlight Ms. Peacock’s beauty as Lady Macbeth than Graham
Abbey’s nice chest as Macbeth. John Stead’s fights are unusually excitingly
staged. Otherwise, this solid production is entirely well handled but without
the artists’ covering themselves with glory, except for Stead and Gil Wechsler,
whose lighting is the play’s strongest element.
And Stratford
has a second hit musical, Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. This is the last
Broadway version with additionalCole Porter songs not in the
original show, and P. G. Woodhouse and Guy Bolton’s book tricked up by Howard
Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and most recently fixed up by Timothy Crouse and
John Weidman. The plot is foolish enough to have required endless tinkering,
but this most recent updating doesn’t lose its ’30s flavor. Despite major
miscastings, Stratford’s revival is a crowd-pleasing, fun-filled picnic.
What’s wrong
is that Stratford’s resident muscom diva, Cynthia Dale, is too inalterably
ladylike for the role of Reno Sweeney, evangelist turned nightclub singer. Reno
was written for the legendary, brassy Ethel Merman. Still, however
over-refined, Dale has great charm, sings brilliantly in all styles, and here
reveals no little ability to tap dance.
Worse
miscasting is Michael Gruber as Billy Crocker, whom Reno describes as a pretty
boy. If not exactly homely, Gruber looks, at best, like a young George C.
Scott. But his singing and acting style is right out of a ’30s movie, and he
performs the role ideally. Finally, I can’t get upset about the stuffy, foolish
Lord Evelyn Oakleigh’s not being played, as usual, by a gawky, funny-looking
geek, but rather by a really handsome man who sings and dances superbly. Laird
Mackintosh gives up none of Lord Evelyn’s comedy but adds dimension to the
part.
Other
standouts in the large cast are Sheila McCarthy as a gangster’s moll who goes
through sailors like treats at a buffet, Elizabeth DeGrazia as the sweet
debutante Hope Harcoat, Jimmy Spadola as Moonface Martin — only the 13th
most-wanted US criminal — and Jason Sermonia and Julius Sermonia as acrobatic
Chinese. (What is it with the emphasis on acrobats? I’ve seen two shows in
California, one in Rochester, and two at Stratford that featured acrobatics,
all in one month.) Everyone tap dances with aplomb, even actors playing rich
old folks, like classical-repertory veterans Douglas Chamberlain and Patricia
Collins.
I don’t know
any previous work of director and choreographer Anne Allen, but she makes this
show zip along with infectious speed and nonstop hilarity, makes it dance like
the best Hollywood musicals of the ’30s, and glosses over any of its flaws with
irresistible jollity.
This is a big
show for the smaller Avon Theater, but it works. Patrick Clark’s ship set is
necessarily scaled down, but it opens to display interiors and accommodate all
kinds of slapstick sailors and showgirls, gangsters, aristocrats, and whatnot
else. And Clark’s flashy costumes are a hoot. Berthold Carriere conducts and
directs the great Porter score as well as it is ever likely to be treated.
Stratford Festival,Stratford, Ontario: Guys and Dollsat the Festival Theatre through
November 7; Macbethat the
Festival Theatre throughOctober 30; Anything Goesat the Avon Theatre through
October 31. Tix: $23.65 to $111.40 ($17.57 to $82.77 US dollars).
800-567-1600, www.stratfordfestival.ca
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2004.
