Interestingly, the famously problematic Cuba sequence of this justly beloved musical has been revised and is one of the best of the entire production.
When Erica Stephan, one of Chicago’s most exciting and emotionally resonant talents, begins singing “If I Were a Bell,” the potpourri of a production of “Guys and Dolls” at the Drury Lane Theatre finally settles into something worthwhile. But by that point, her Sister Sarah is already in Cuba with Sky Masterson, the tropical cocktails are flowing and it’s almost intermission.
Interestingly, the famously problematic Cuba sequence of this justly beloved musical, originally staged as a virtual kidnapping but shrewdly rehabbed here with Sarah very much in charge, is one of the best of the entire production. More generally, the show just doesn’t have enough of a defined directorial point of view to stand out in an era when Chicago’s musical houses have greatly raised their collective game.
“Guys and Dolls,” it hardly needs repeating, is one of the greatest musicals of all time. With some 14 songs, everything from classic ballads to “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat,” the Frank Loesser score is a font of riches. The book, by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows based on a pair of Damon Runyon stories, has a bushel and a peck of laughs that still work for anyone not yet six feet under.
Underneath all of that fun, of course, the musical worries over many of the gendered concerns of Americans in 1950, especially the fear of marriage and settling down and the perils of being attracted to the wrong kind of shiny faced loser. It’s also a great glamorization, and sanitation, of the heyday of New York and Chicago, back when those cities were all citadels of sin, newsstands and nighteries, gambling, gangsters and glamor.
This uneven, mixed bag of a production, directed and choreographed by a possibly overstretched Dan Knechtges, is certainly serviceable and mostly well sung, but it somehow doesn’t fully fill the stage with life, even as it gets trapped in the kind of overwrought characterizations that “Guys and Dolls” just doesn’t need. Over the years, the best Chicago-area productions always have better trusted the lines than what happens here.
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'Drive-Away Dolls' Review — Ethan Coen’s Latest Is Missing One ThingRoss Bonaime is the Senior Film Editor at Collider. He is a Virginia-based critic, writer, and editor who has written about all forms of entertainment for Paste Magazine, Brightest Young Things, Flickchart, The Free Lance-Star, and more.
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