By Adam Cohen . . .
Abe Burrows, Jo Swerling, and Frank Loesser’s 1950 musical comedy, Guys and Dolls, is one of my favorite shows. When the opportunity came to travel to London, seeing it became my priority. Nicholas Hytner’s production—filled with innovative staging—places some of the audience mere inches from the action.
Bunny Christie’s mobile stage continually remakes itself, its platforms rising up to reveal New York City’s bars, clubs and street corners. This movement creates a distraction from the drama, to some degree, yet captures the spirit of Damon Runyon’s original story and the unceasing bustle of his “Runyonland.” It is a marvel to see worlds constructed before our eyes, accentuated by Paule Constable’s lighting design.
Standing on the floor creates a unique, in-the-moment experience that can’t be replicated from a seat. Actors will swill from your drink, sit in your lap, or flirt as select audience members grab tables at the Hot Box. And the infusion of a close audience elevates the actors to a whole other energy and performance level. The intimacy emboldens the performances with an energy and relevance that wipes away memories of past experiences of Guys and Dolls.
We’re treated to an emphatically traditional enactment of the story itself, with period dress (costumes by Deborah Andrews) and exaggeratedly cartoonish characters ripped right from Runyon’s text. But it all works wonderfully. The performances are strong—especially the singing voices and dancing.
Marisha Wallace gives an entertaining rendition of “Adelaide’s Lament” along with the witty duet “Sue Me,” shared with Adelaide’s gambling fiancé, Nathan Detroit (Daniel Mays). Schoenmaker and Andrew Richardson (as Sky Masterson) infuse “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” with romance. Wallace and the Hot Box dancers are precise, luminescent and transcendent with their burlesque takes on “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Take Back Your Mink.”
Hytner, orchestrator Charlie Rosen and choreographers Arlene Phillips and James Cousins raise the inevitable frisson gained from the proximity to world-class singing and dancing. Rosen opens up the tunes—giving the Havana nightclub scene a platform for amazing movement, even hinting at Sky’s possible homo- or bi-sexuality, a thrilling spark of subversion hinting at a far more daring future reconception. “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” brilliantly incorporates waves and gets two encores as Cedric Neal’s affable take on gangster Nicely-Nicely Johnson slays.
Mays is thoroughly loveable as Nathan Detroit. Wallace’s Adelaide is no ditz—she’s fully in passionate love with Detroit. It’s a performance for the ages. She builds a lovely rapport with Celinde Schoenmaker’s missionary Sergeant Sarah Brown. She’s brave and strong, but ultimately fragile and unsure of who she is as Sky makes her seriously question her devotion to saving New York’s sinners. Richardson nails Masterson’s confidence—even as the romance with Sarah is the bet that could break his reputation. Come the end their romance feels sincere, but tentative—realism rarely seen in musical comedy of the fifties.
Guys and Dolls in the hands of Hytner and his team is inherently exuberant. I love this show and this production. Ending with a big dance party, the cast traipses through our midst, posing gamely for selfies, and basking in brilliant glory. It’s a moment of pure joy, the last of a non-stop night of them.
Guys and Dolls. Through February 24, 2024 at London’s Bridge Theatre (3 Potters Fields Park, London, England). Two hours 50 minutes with one intermission. www.bridgetheatre.co.uk
Photos: Manuel Harlan
