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1992-09-10
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REVIEWS, Page 65THEATERBroadway's Bell Goes Ding! Dong!
By WILLIAM A. HENRY III
TITLE: Guys and Dolls
AUTHOR: Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser;
Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
WHERE: Broadway
THE BOTTOM LINE: The greatest of all American musicals
gets the rousing revival it deserves.
One might imagine that Lau rence Olivier could have
commanded any role he chose, and conjured up virtually any
showcase production to feature it. But the actor of the century
died thwarted because he was unable, while running Britain's
Royal National Theater, to finance a production of Guys and
Dolls starring himself as the lowlife gambler Nathan Detroit.
It's unclear whether Olivier could have brought off this plum
musical role -- the legendary Shakespearean's song-and-dance
talents went largely untested during his career, and his
American accents tended to be unplaceably wayward -- but his
taste was impeccable. As the Broadway revival that opened last
week demonstrates anew, Guys and Dolls is the finest blend of
memorable tunes, witty yet in-character lyrics, robust humor,
tender romance, streetwise sass and overall style that the
American musical theater has ever produced.
Like the Damon Runyon stories from which it grew, this
outwardly hard, cynical piece is in truth a moralizing fable
about honor among thieves, the rehabilitation potential of
practically anyone, and the redemptive power of love. As
envisioned by director Jerry Zaks and set designer Tony Walton,
it is also a paean to an urban zest, vitality and security that
no longer exist and probably never did. The show's look is
deliberately old fashioned, a combination pastiche and homage
to the days when scenery was painted backdrops and choruses
always ended up at some point as lines at the front of the
stage. The flavor of this rendition is deliberately jokey, an
acknowledgment that the gangsters who so heavily populate its
story are sentimentalizations; they may dress worse than John
Gotti, but they behave infinitely better.
The period-piece treatment may seem unnecessary and
distancing. But this is a cavil compared with the production's
many virtues, from its costumes, a literal laff riot of
cacophonous color, to its performances. Faith Prince's
over-the-top yet completely convincing medof mannerisms as
Nathan's loved one, Miss Adelaide, is the central delight of the
evening. But the fulcrum of the story is Peter Gallagher's blend
of immense charm with an appropriately edgy and dangerous aura
as the big-time gambler Sky Masterson. Vocally, the whole show
is strong. Prince and Nathan Lane, as Detroit, are supremely
articulate in the comic songs, Gallagher and the bell-voiced
Josie de Guzman, as the missionary Sarah Brown, rich and
exuberant in the ballads. The smaller characters are played
appropriately broadly yet with real zing.
The greatest asset, however, is neither the show's nonstop
movement nor its unselfconscious ribaldry, but the fact that it
is back where it belongs: out of the cast-album bin at record
stores and igniting Broadway again.