Guys & Dolls

At Waterfront Theatre until August 25, 2018
Tickets from $25 at fightingchanceproductions.ca

Posted August 10, 2018

The songs just keep coming and coming. With some of them you think, “Wow, I’d almost forgotten this great song was in this show”.  And then there are the other ones that are so deeply embedded in memory you never forget where they came from: “Luck Be a Lady”, “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat”, “Adelaide’s Lament” and “If I Were a Bell”. Who of us who saw the 1955 musical film will ever forget Vivian Blaine nasally griping, “Take back your mink/Take back your poils/What makes you think/That I am one of those goils”? Or Old Blue Eyes forlornly trying to placate Adelaide with, “Call a lawyer and sue me, sue me/What can you do me?/I love you.” And did bedroom eyes Brando actually sing “Luck Be a Lady”. Or was that dubbed?

This Fighting Chance Productions show is a lot of fun in spite of the less-than-Broadway production values: the set can best be described as ‘shoe-string’ although an inspired idea is placing a pole on stage atop of which is a street lamp – until a pole dancer shinnies up and pops out the lamp and pops in a palm tree when the action shifts to Havana. Sari Rosofsky is that pole dancer and she’s a real scene-stealer with her twirling, upside-downing and generally making that pole work for her. Not only can she sing and dance, she’s a competitive pole dancer. That lamp post-cum-palm tree also tells us when we’re in the ‘Hot Box’, the club where Adelaide dances wearing, as she says, “not much”.

But also on that shoestring, costume designer Amara Anderson pulls off some minor miracles, the best of which are the satiny gowns, fake-fur stoles and elbow length gloves. By the time the chorus girls have told their guys to take back all their ‘gifts’, they’re down to black corsets.

Amanda Lau and Rachael Carlson share the choreography credits and the mostly young, pre-professional ensemble, pours itself into it with high energy. The story takes place in the 30s so it’s tricky getting the choreography just right: it should look like the 30s but it should also look fresh and new. It looks good and it looks 30s.

If the show lacks the glitz of Broadway, it lacks nothing in the way of good singing voices. Scott McGowan is Sky Masterson, the inveterate gambler who bets Nathan Detroit (Charlie Deagnon) that he can woo prim and upright Salvation Army gal Sarah Brown (Ranae Miller) and take her to Havana on a date. These three can sing: McGowan’s rich tenor blends beautifully with Miller’s soaring soprano and, for generally comic relief, Deagnon weighs in. Physically, he’s perfect: a big soulful, teddy-bear of a guy.

Mandy Rushton’s Adelaide is appropriately nasal and she’s got terrific comedic chops, too. Argel Monte De Ramos comes on strong as Nicely- Nicely Johnson and does a terrific job of “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat”.

The five-piece band sounds like many more under the musical direction of Marquis Byrd (Piano), Jazz Palley (bass), RJ Abella (trumpet), Mithun Michael Bagchi (drums) and Ardeshir Pourkeramati (reeds). The show kicks off with a rocking overture that sets the mood for the evening.

If I’ve forgotten some of the songs in Guys & Dolls, I’ve also forgotten how funny the book (Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows) and lyrics (Frank Loesser) are. Loosely based on a couple of Damon Runyan short stories, it’s full of that vernacular. Talking about women, Sky says, “A doll must always take second place to back-to-back aces.” Nathan says he’s been “running crap games since I was juvenile delinquent.” Harry the Horse, another gambler, struck it rich when he “collected the reward on his father.”

Jennifer Suratos directs and she puts this large cast of almost two dozen  – mostly students or grads of Capilano U., Studio 58, UBC, SFU and the Canadian College of Performing Arts – through their paces with loads of style and polish.

Fighting Chance Productions’ artistic director Ryan Mooney commented on opening night (with a huge, enthusiastic crowd filling the Waterfront Theatre) that they don’t make musicals like this anymore. And that’s a pity because it gives a leg up to a whole lot of theatre artists ready and eager to make their mark.

Go for the great songs, go for the dancing, go for the feel-good story – although five will get you ten that Sky Masterson won’t stick to saving sinners for long.

Air conditioning in the Waterfront is a bonus.