Reviewed by James Karas
Energetic, precise, enjoyable,
athletic, marvelous – these are the words that kept swirling in my head as I
watched the Stratford Festival’s production of Guys and Dolls. Much of
the credit goes to Donna Feore who directs and choreographs the production. It
is this season’s big musical offering and it is done superbly.
The musical which opened in 1950
has won so many awards over the years that if it were a general and the awards
were medals, his chest would have to be expanded several times over to make
room for all of them.
The New York underworld of
floating crap games, tough guys, crooks, a dizzy blonde, a beautiful and
upstanding Salvation Army sergeant set in the streets of Manhattan, night
clubs, gambling joints, a mission and Havana provide great latitude for humour,
song and dance.
You know that Sky Masterson (Evan
Buliung) bets that he can take Sergeant Sarah Brown of the Salvation Army to
Cuba for dinner. And that Nathan Detroit (Sean Arbuckle) has been engaged to
Miss Adelaide (Blythe Wilson) for 14 years. Her mother thinks that they have
been married for years and have a bunch of children.
Members of the company in
Guys and Dolls. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.
The two men have their problems
with their women and we must work through them. There are other colourful characters
like Big Julie (Beau Dixon) the nasty gambler from Chicago and Angie the Ox
(Sayer Roberts), Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Steve Ross), Harry the Horse (Brad
Rudy), Benny Southstreet (Mark Uhre) and Lt. Brannigan (John Kirkpatrick). You
are better off imagining them than requiring further description.
The backbone of the musical and this production is the
ensemble of gamblers and Hot Box dancers.
Blythe Wilson (centre) as
Miss Adelaide with members of the company in Guys and Dolls.
Photo by
Cylla von Tiedemann.
The singing by Buliung, Arbuckle,
Wilson, Gordon and the others is good and we laugh at the jokes. But the energy
and joy are produced by the ensemble performance. From Michael Gianfrancesco’s
sets of the streets of New York to the opulent burlesque scenes to the extravagant
costumes by Dana Osborne and the superb kaleidoscope of lighting by Michael
Walton, we are treated to extraordinary production values.
Add Feore’s amazing choreography
and the ensemble performances of the men and women and you get a built-up of
energy that electrifies the audience. The miraculous relationship between stage
and audience occurs that is so essential to a
live performance and so thrilling when it happens.
What a show.
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