Overall, the show is an enjoyable, albeit predictable, night out at the theater. There’s always a place for classics in each theater season, and a hat tip to the past 70 years of Blackfriars Theatre with a musical from the era of its origin feels like a fitting choice.
“Guys and Dolls”
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THEATER: 2013 Shaw Festival
So far, I’ve seen only half the plays at this year’s Shaw Festival, so it wouldn’t be fair to draw final conclusions. But at this point the word for this season is — with exceptions — mediocre. Only director Jackie Maxwell’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara” in the small Royal George Theatre transformed […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
THEATER PREVIEW: 2013 Shaw Festival
How long can you call yourself The Shaw Festival if you do hardly any Shaw? For most of the last 30 of its more than 50 seasons, the Festival in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, has mounted a dozen plays, more or less, between April and late October, including three or four by George Bernard Shaw, and […]
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Bringing out the stars of musical comedy
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 […]
