‘Guys and Dolls’ At The Wallis Reaches For Stars In The Sky
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Guys and Dolls,” now playing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, belongs to a golden age of musical theater long passed — a time when pop hits, like “Luck Be a Lady,” came from the stage; a time when musicals were still one of the most popular cinematic genres; a time when song and dance men like Bing Crosby and Gene Kelly were bona-fide heartthrobs.
As a show, it’s the pinnacle of musical comedy. A pair of unlikely romantic lovers, a gambler and a mission doll, is matched by a comedic duo of a nightclub dancer and her hustler fiancé of fourteen years, and all of this is backed by an ensemble of vivid supporting characters. As is only possible in the world of a musical, the gun-toting gamblers are well-intentioned softies who never turn their backs on their pals and the dolls are literally dreaming of life behind a white picket fence. In this candy-apple vision of New York’s underworld, we get a satirical look at love and the expectations men and women both upend and fail to meet.
Classics become such because of iconic characters, witty dialogue, and timeless songs — “Guys and Dolls” has all of that in spades, and the rendition at the Wallis brings this masterfully to life.
The production is gifted with achingly romantic, lovely turns and vocal perfection from its Sky Masterson (Jeremy Peter Johnson) and mission doll Sarah Brown (Kate Hurster). They each shine on their own — Hurster with her comedic timing and physical aplomb on the Havana scenes and “If I Were a Bell”; Johnson with his slick dance moves and pleading, sexy take on “Luck Be a Lady.” But it’s their chemistry (yeah, chemistry!) and the nuance in their romantic longing that elevates them to star status.
The characters are both so sure of who they are — a gambler/committed bachelor and a woman single-mindedly devoted to her faith — that it’s all the more rewarding when they find themselves falling in love, the moment of course realized in song with the one-two punch of “My Time of Day” and “I’ve Never Been in Love Before.” Director Mary Zimmerman beautifully stages this moment, as they come together in an embrace kneeling in each other’s arms under a streetlamp. The confusion and agony of love, as well as the joy they find in each other, is exquisitely present and will leave hopeless romantics swooning.
They are backed by a stellar ensemble, including a winning Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Daniel T. Parker) and Benny Southstreet (David Kelley). Kelley and Parker nail the timing on the title number, and Parker leads the cast through a rousing rendition of “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” “Rockin’ the Boat” is meant to take on the fervor of a religious revival meeting, and this cast takes you to church.
Daniel Pelzig’s choreography also shines throughout, but most especially on “The Crap Shooter’s Dance.” The men dazzle as they ace their way through high-energy acrobatics and dance moves that bring the crap game to life.
What’s more — Pelzig has the restraint to choreograph the Hot Box Numbers in a realistic fashion, keeping them stripped down so as to remind us of the seedy kind of joint it really is. Miss Adelaide (Robin Goodrin Nordil) does not execute any flashy choreography, which leaves us comfortable with her own stasis as a permanent fiancée and pseudo-stripper.
If the production does slightly falter, it’s with its comedic duo — Nathan Detroit (Rodney Gardiner) and Miss Adelaide (Robin Goodrin Nordli). Their timing is slightly off, particularly in their scenes together. They routinely miss each other by a beat, though they seem to ease into each other in the second act.
The characters are also famous in the musical theatre canon for their “New Yawk” accents, and they both fall short on this front, Nordli in particular. She admirably strives to infuse Miss Adelaide’s voice with the strain of her perpetual cold, but regularly drops out of dialect in the process. Nordli makes Miss Adelaide a caricature, down to her full-body sneeze, and in this, she loses the essence of the character, including her inherently humorous naïveté.
The production value is fabulous. Though the show is classically set in the 1950s (when it was first produced), Zimmerman and the design team resituate it in the 1930s to hew closer to its source material, Damon Runyon’s 1933 story “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown.” Truthfully, except to the most sartorially discerning audience members, it’s not much of a shift. The 1930s lens is most evident in Miss Adelaide’s clothes, but the men’s fedoras and suits, as well as the Mission Band uniforms, could fit just as well in 1950 as 1930.
Mara Blumenfeld’s costumes pop vibrantly off the stage. Men pack heat in hot pink and canary yellow button down shirts, and women tap their way through New York in teal and periwinkle heels. The colorful characters and pastiche, musical theater version of New York come vividly to life in her designs.
The set pieces, designed by Daniel Ostling, are similar confections, from the neon Hot Box signs to a stage full of beach balls. The addition of pieces like a small plane on a string lend an air of playfulness to the proceedings. Although, this is all bizarrely displayed against a drab backdrop of embossed plaster, which left me yearning for the use of the main curtain with its engraving of 1930s New York.
T.J. Gerckens lighting completes this vision of New York as musical theater fantasy, lending a neon, smoky gleam to this musicalized underworld. He helps create some memorable stage images, most especially the tableau of Sky throwing the dice roll of his life surrounded by a pack of gangsters.
All in all, “Guys and Dolls” at the Wallis is the perfect holiday outing that lives up to the show’s reputation as one of the greatest musical comedies ever written. The whole thing is as fizzy and light as a classic cocktail, leaving you drunk on the effervescence of romance, catchy tunes, and the sheer feel-good power of the classic American musical. If luck is a lady, she’s certainly with these Guys and Dolls.
“Guys and Dolls” is now playing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd) through December 20th. Tickets start at $20. For more information, visit www.thewallis.org
Contact Staff Writer Maureen Lee Lenker at maureenlee08@gmail.com or on Twitter @maureenlee89.
