GUYS AND DOLLS Moonlight Stage
The Moonlight Amphitheatre has a well-earned reputation for glorious stagings of Broadway classics on the West Coast, and their production of Guy and Dolls is no exception. The Moonlight exhibits its characteristic immensity: humungous dance numbers, a sprawling and talented ensemble, and a pounding orchestra to boot.
Perhaps it is a sign of my ingrained contrarian impulses that I expected a show that attained popularity in the 1950s to lack a substantial story—all glitz and no substance. However, this musical does not lack at all for drama, for stakes, for characters one can care about, or for a lovely and funny story. The scenes are incredibly successfully constructed, and the stretches of dialogue are just as entertaining as the musical numbers.
The hilarity of the dialogue is largely down to the fact that exceptionally funny actors have been cast in all the roles. The comedy centerpoint for the show is the tumultuous relationship between Nathan Detroit (Steven Glaudini) and Miss Adelaide (Bets Malone), who have been engaged for fourteen years despite Adelaide’s constant insistence they get married. Nathan and Adelaide have wicked sharp comedic banter, eliciting shriller and shriller reactions out of each other with their quasi-nuptial antics. Adelaide’s determination to be married to Nathan is not framed perhaps as dismissively as it would have been in 1950 when the show first premiered, but the way her nagging is written does reflect the antiquated sexism of the era that was internalized by the all-male writing team.
Bets Malone (center) and the cast of GUYS AND DOLLS - Photo Credit: Karli Cadel
Malone is pure talent, both as a flashy hot box girl and afterwards when she bemoans her fiance’s lack of commitment, beset by a nasty psychosomatic cold. Her nasal soliloquy is nothing less than beautiful, and she complements Nathan’s ratty anxiousness perfectly.
In addition to these two, there are a number of standout comedians amongst the gamblers and hot box women, including Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Chase Lowary), who frequently bungles Nathan’s schemes by loudly proclaiming one aspect of the plan or another to someone who really oughtn't hear it; and Big Jule (DeAndre Simmons), a visiting gambler from Chicago who is known in equal measure for his cheating and his danger. Lowary is a total goof on the stage and gets to flex his singing talent in the bombastic and attention-grabbing act two number “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat”. Simmons balances intimidation and hilarity excellently, and carried out my favorite joke in the show (wherein he uses dice that have had the pips filed off, claiming he remembers where they were) with flying colors. These two are by no means the only uniquely guffaw-inducing members of the cast; everyone in the ensemble treats themselves to a specific and funny role that fills this fictional New York with lightness and joviality in the background.
Against my better wishes, this musical comedy chooses to forgo levity in certain moments to allow for the more tender aspects of its love story to come to the forefront, mostly via its second primary couple, Sky Masterson (Patrick Cummings) and Sarah Brown (Alessa Neeck). Masterson is a suave gambler who can’t be tied down, and Brown is a devout missionary of the temperance movement in her part of New York. This is one of the classic Broadway love stories that sets the benchmark for what romance looks like on the stage—that also contains a lot of understated sexism—and is beautiful to watch, as Cummings and Neeck are delicately sweet to each other. The romance really works, and their scenes and songs are wonderfully endearing; it is the sappy stuff that often goes down in history on the stage, and does so delightfully here.
Speaking of the stuff that makes a show a Broadway legend, the dancing in this production is awe-inspiring. The cards are stacked in Guys and Dolls’ favor, given the sheer scope of the ensemble (thirty-four people in all onstage), but choreographer Bill Burns takes the opportunity to move so many bodies around the stage and makes more than the most of it. The dance numbers are show-stopping in their scope and intricacy. If you desire capital-B Big dances with a host of really talented folks moving together, you probably already know to go to The Moonlight, but Guys and Dolls is an ideal destination for you.
Guys and Dolls is, at its core, a vehicle for all-out showmanship that gives the audience, with much bravado, two great love stories set against 1930s gambling and swindling New York City.
Buy tickets here.
