Virginia Stage Company delivers on the happy promise of “Guys and Dolls”

By MAL VINCENT
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
SEP 26, 2019

The Virginia Stage Company picked a crowd-pleaser to open its 41st season, the lively, classic musical “Guys and Dolls.”

And, indeed, the Wells Theatre was the scene of much laughter and toe-tapping as the VSC delivered this tale of gangsters the gals who love them, set to Frank Loesser’s music and lyrics. The original Broadway production won five Tony Awards, including best musical. But it’s not a lead-pipe cinch. New York reviewers called its 2009 Broadway revival, one of many staged around the world, uninspired and tedious. This Norfolk production is a fun outing.

Loesser’s score delivers. It ranges from the plaintive “I’ll Know” to the celebratory “If I Were a Bell,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” “Sue Me” and the title tune about how some Guys are always trapped by some Doll.

Miss Adelaide, perhaps the most famous blonde doll of American theater, realizes that being engaged to gambling enthusiast Nathan Detroit for 14 years has been enough to give her a cold – maybe even the flu. And she’s tired of being sick.

Sister Sarah of the Save-a-Soul Mission makes a deal with smooth-talking Sky Masterson to guarantee her “one dozen genuine sinners” to attend her mission’s revival meeting if she will go on a date with him to Havana. The dice are loaded and it’s all leading to the show-stopping number ”Luck Be a Lady,” handled here with lyric tenor ease by Sam Simahk as Sky.

Any successful version of “Guys and Dolls” needs, in addition to the music, a genuine lowlife New York feel and a sense of irreverent mischief. Director Nicolas Minas has delivered both – even with an uneven cast and cramped quarters.

With a cast of some two dozen, including both pro Equity members and local energizers, this is the type of big musical that VSC subscribers have been clamoring for, but that the theater seems ill-equipped to handle. It is one of the few shows that has made the stage look small.

For all four of its decades, VSC has been answering demands for full-scale musicals by pointing out that the theater has no orchestra pit. This is the theater that has done “My Fair Lady,” including the Embassy Ball, with two pianos, and has handled a number of musical revues by putting the musicians on stage. Here, bravely fitting into tight quarters where others have feared to tread, musical director Barton Kuebler, assisted by Dean Englert, uses some 10 instruments to give the show the depth it requires. The little touches of musical mischief are particularly welcome.

Jessica Lee Goldyn seems to realize that she has one of the best roles in musical theaterdom in flightly Miss Adelaide. Goldyn has both the diction and the brass for the fast patter of “Adelaide’s Lament’’ over troubles with a man, and the sell the lovably vulgar “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Take Back Your Mink.” She builds a good deal of sympathy for Adelaide, even as we see that poor Nathan doesn’t stand a chance. Brian Ray Norris is suitably the crap-shooting rascal Nathan Detroit, always setting up a new dice game and always successful, until now, in dodging matrimony. He’s a comic.

Simahk is the comfortable stand-out of the show, because he has the easy-going tenor voice that makes us believe he is converted when he sings “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” and proclaims his view of love in “I’ll Know,” the two ballads that set the foundation of the evolving romance. Casey Shuler, though, is either miscast or (we suspect) misdirected as she tries to convey the vulnerability and the discovery of a new life for Sister Sarah. Her “I’ll Know” is shrill and apparently pitched too high. More offensive is that “If I Were a Bell” is presented as an Ethel-Merman-belter rather than what it should be – a lyrical, joyous discovery of new love.

In the supporting cast, Rona Hyman is a pistol-toting laugh getter as Big Jule, the big-time gangster from Chicago. James T. Lane is terrific as Nicely-Nicely with his showcase number “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”

In the dance category, choreographer Jordan Dunlap has perhaps asked too much of his troupe. The Dolls fare well enough in their Hot Box numbers, which, after all, are based more on hip-swinging than dance. The Dolls are delightful.

The male dancers give a manful try to the demands of two big numbers, which include all the basic moves of Broadway chorus dance. Energy makes up for a great deal, but a choreographer needs to fit his moves to the capabilities of his dancers.

All in all, “Guys and Dolls” is a fun night out that reminds us of a time when shows had songs like these. The dice are loaded. Nicely. Very Nicely.

What: “Guys and Dolls,” presented by the Virginia Stage Company

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays to Fridays, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; through Oct. 6

Where: Wells Theatre, 108 E. Tazewell St., Norfolk

Tickets: $25-$55, 757-627-1234, www.vastage.org