TT: Joy in Runyonland

On Sunday I drove up to Massachusetts’ Barrington Stage Company to see a letter-perfect revival of Guys and Dolls, and in today’s Wall Street Journal I rave about it. Here’s an excerpt.
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If “Guys and Dolls” isn’t the best Broadway musical ever written, then…but why go on? Everybody who knows and loves the show agrees that it’s as good as a musical can get. Frank Loesser’s score is a platinum mine–at least half of the 16 songs, including “If I Were a Bell,” “I’ll Know,” “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” and “Luck Be a Lady,” are take-it-to-the-bank standards–and the book, smartly adapted by Abe Burrows from the raffish short stories of Damon Runyon, is funny enough to stand on its own.
But no musical, however classic, is invulnerable to bad direction, and Des McAnuff’s miscast 2009 Broadway revival was an over-cooked scoop of mush soft enough to make anyone unfamiliar with “Guys and Dolls” wonder what the fuss was about. If only John Rando’s new Barrington Stage version had opened on Broadway instead of in the Berkshires! Mr. Rando, a master of musical comedy who won a Tony for “Urinetown,” gets everything right that Mr. McAnuff got wrong, and plenty more besides.
The manifold virtues of this revival start with the stars. The four lead roles are played by top-class regional-theater performers with Broadway experience, all of whom sing as well as they act. Matthew Risch, lately of “Pal Joey,” is smooth and debonair as Sky Masterson, the high-rolling sharpie who wins the heart of Miss Sarah Brown (Morgan James), the dishy Salvation Army doll who longs to save the souls of all the heels on Broadway. Michael Thomas Holmes plays Nathan Detroit, the proprietor of the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York, like a slightly nebbishy Harvey Keitel. Ms. James, a refugee from the cast of “Wonderland,” has classical-quality pipes and enough warmth to melt the heart of a bill collector in January. As for Leslie Kritzer, who stood out in “A Catered Affair” and “Sondheim on Sondheim,” she shines brightly as the tough but lovable Adelaide, a third-tier nightclub warbler who’s been engaged to Nathan for 14 years and doesn’t want to hear any more excuses.
None of these four pros needs help to make a strong impression, but Mr. Rando, working in tandem with Joshua Bergasse, the show’s choreographer, surely deserves plenty of credit for sharpening the focus of their characterizations. Every plot point is put across with the unobtrusive crispness of the comradely kiss that Sky plants atop Adelaide’s head at the end of the reprise of “Adelaide’s Lament.” The laughs are there, but so is the feeling: You never forget that “Guys and Dolls” is not just a comedy but also a double-barreled love story, and you believe at all times in the truth of the underlying emotions that give meaning to the jokes….
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Read the whole thing here.