Guys and Dolls

N and I went on Thursday night to see the college's production of Guys and Dolls. I know it's an old-fashioned show, but perhaps, like Minsky's, which recently played at the Ahmanson, what we need right now in these troubled times is comfort, something familiar and fun, something without a deep message. I've only ever seen the film version of Guys and Dolls, never a theatrical production, and even that experience with the movie has been a long time ago now. I had forgotten just how many good songs there are in the show and how many opportunities it presents to showcase singing and dancing and acting.

The story should be familiar to a lot of people. A group of hustlers and crooks and two-bit criminals in New York City are trying to find a place to host a floating crap game. The folks of the Save-A-Soul Mission are trying to convert these lowlifes to a life of religion. One of the con artists, Nathan Detroit, makes a bet with another, Sky Masterson, that he can't get the head of the missionaries, Sarah Brown, to go with him to Cuba. Nathan has his own difficulties, of course, what with being engaged for 14 years to Miss Adelaide, one of the performers at the Hot Box. (Yes, I'm surprised they were able to get away with that back in the 1950s, too.) He's also having little luck in finding a location for the crap game. You should know that there's a happy ending in store, given the time period in which it was first written and performed.

This being a student production, you might not think that the quality of the production would be very high, but you'd be wrong in this case. Our college does a fantastic job with sets and costumes and staging. And the casting is usually first-rate as well. The students in Guys and Dolls on Thursday were great dancers, good singers, and talented performers all around. I have to say, in particular, how impressed I was by the guys in the cast. The two numbers that are really showcases for the men in the ensemble--"The Oldest Established" and "Luck Be a Lady"--were breathtaking and received loud applause from the audience. Of course, the showstopper was the performance of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." The young man playing Nicely-Nicely Johnson wowed the audience. I did think for a moment that he and the rest of the cast wouldn't be able to continue after the crowd started to roar its approval.

And I loved hearing Frank Loesser's songs again. Just a few of the highlights:

• "I'll Know," a lovely duet between Sky and Sarah about the ways we fall in love
• "Adelaide's Lament," surely one of the funniest numbers ever written for a Broadway show, the story of how waiting for love can make us sick
• "I've Never Been in Love Before," an incredibly romantic song that just becomes more resonant each time I hear it
• "Take Back Your Mink," a real showcase for the Hot Box Dancers
• "More I Cannot Wish You," which was not performed particularly well Thursday night, but which has some lovely sentiments to it

With songs like that, how can you go wrong?

Not everything was perfect, of course. The young woman playing Sarah has an operatic voice that didn't gel with the singing of the rest of the cast too well at times. There were several problems with microphones losing sound, and I noticed a dancer or two lost a shoe now and then. Still, it was a fun evening at the theater. I had been working very hard all week, grading papers and doing lesson plans and teaching, and I was afraid I would fall asleep during the show. No danger there, though, given the quality of the production and of the performers in it. N and I saw the dean of the division and the faculty member who worked with the students on the ensemble vocal numbers, and they both had as much fun as we did. Sometimes, an evening of escapist entertainment is just what you need.