Guys And Dolls (Portland Center Stage)

[October 1st, 2008]

When Chris Coleman announced at the beginning of summer that he would set his season-opening production of Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows’ musical masterpiece in the Depression-era New York of the Damon Runyon stories that inspired it, he could not possibly have known how apt that decision would turn out to be. With two bank failures in the past week, it’s looking more like 1932 every day.

I, for one, could use a little light entertainment, and there aren’t many shows out there more entertaining than Guys and Dolls. There’s an appealing cheeky innocence to the story of unsavory gangsters bending over backwards for love, and the songs—“Adelaide’s Lament,” “Luck Be a Lady” and “Marry the Man Today,” to name just three—can’t be beat.

Portland Center Stage’s version is a Chris Coleman Special, with all the marks of the form: an excellent orchestra under the direction of Rick Lewis; a towering, abstracted set; plenty of slapstick; a sexy dance number with shirtless boys in suspenders; and Amy Palomino in a bit part, dancing circles around the rest of the cast.

It’s a pretty solid show, with great chemistry between Nathan Detroit (John Plumpis) and Miss Adelaide (Stacia Fernandez), sweetly silly Hot Box dance bits, and a true show-stopper in “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” sung with euphoric gusto by Todd A. Horman (Nicely-Nicely Johnson), a lovable ham with a beautiful voice, whom I hope we’ll see onstage at the Armory in the future.

That said, there’s something lacking. A couple of the characters—Benny Southstreet (Leif Norby) and Big Jule (Wendell Wright)—are terribly stiff. Worse is lovesick missionary Sarah Brown (Carey Brown). Brown also played Maria in PCS’ 2006 production of West Side Story, and then, as now, she came across as a pretty girl with a nice voice and no personality. Then, as now, it’s hard to buy a handsome rebel falling for her. I don’t know if it’s her fault or the director’s, but something’s got to change.