Here's my marker that five will get you ten if you put your money on Guys and Dolls at the Paper Mill Playhouse. No matter how much you spend on tickets, those fabled Damon Runyon characters are sure to double your investment in pleasure. Those dusk-to-dawn denizens of Broadway have surfaced on the Jersey side of the Hudson but still look for the same all-night crap game. This time the game is not only a little different, it's a lot brighter and a great deal more fun than it possibly has a right to be.
Guys and Dolls is Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows' great homage to those fabulously flamboyant flimflam men and their floozies. Although first produced a little over fifty years ago to the ever lovin' delight of theatergoers everywhere, the tuner never seems to lose its sass or its fun. While many musicals wane in appeal and popularity for future generations, Guys and Dolls once again validates its wit and its charm for director Stafford Arima and his outstanding company. And what about that company recruited to handle that hilarious vernacular, the great Loesser score and Patricia Wilcox's buoyant choreography?
At first, Robert Cuccioli appears almost too suave, too cool and too reserved. But somehow, by the second act, he has become an irrepressibly perfect Sky Masterson. His dapper portrayal takes into account his deft way with a song, notably the wistful "My Time of Day," and with the more raucous "Luck Be a Lady." And wait until you see how much high-octane comedy Michael Mastro siphons out of the checkered-past of Nathan Detroit.
But these guys do have to contend with a pair of dolls who are not about to play second fiddle to any tinhorn, especially at those hangouts of choice, the Save-A-Soul Mission and the Hot Box nightclub. Kate Baldwin got the calling and may be the most vivaciously strong-willed mission girl Sara Brown ever to "Follow the Fold." But Baldwin's feisty persona also yields beautifully to the romantic demands of "I'll Know," "If I Were a Bell," and the duet sung with Cuccioli, "I've Never Been in Love Before."
So who's got the role of Nathan's ever-lovin' ever fianced Adelaide? Why it is none other than Karen Ziemba, the most delectably sexy bundle of big town pulchritude one could wish for. Coming to Guys and Dolls straight from stealing what was worth stealing from the short-lived Never Gonna Dance (this season Ziemba won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for this musical), she almost incites pandemonium with her squeaks, wiggles, bumps and winks in those two gloriously tacky Hot Box extravaganzas -- "A Bushel and a Peck," and "Take Back Your Mink." But it is Ziemba's light-up-the-stage presence and particularly delightfully refreshed and re-addressed "Adelaide's Lament" that succeeds in bringing down the house the first time. It happens again after her duet ("Marry the Man Today") with Baldwin near the end of the show. When you think that this comes after the rousing 11 o'clock number "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," led by the terrifically James Cagney-fied Nicely Nicely Johnson of Robert Creighton, that's something.
Director Arima has done much more than merely round up that well-loved assortment of gamblers, hustlers, and assorted sharpies for another con-job revival. He keeps the action flowing and the acting flawless. Those guys and their dolls are looking especially good in their stripes, checks and hot summery (heavy on the orange) colors. Take it from one who saw the original and every Broadway revival since, everything about this Guys and Dolls including Tony Walton's re-cycled splashy expressionistic settings, Randall Klein whimsical costumes and F. Mitchell Dana's dazzling lighting, has a feeling of Broadway and the Paper Mill Playhouse at its best about it.
I almost forgot to mention the comic explosions that happen each and every time those hilarious mugs Harry the Horse (Jeff Cyronek), Benny Southstreet (Robert DuSold), and Big Julie (Tony Cucci) hit the big street. Also a standout among the supporting players is Bob Dorian, as Arvide Abernathy (he tenderly sings the touching "More I Cannot Wish You") and Tia Speros, who is a delight as the Mission's General Cartwright. They make up a good part of the general jubilation, and help make this Guys and Dolls probably the only sure-win crap shoot in the garden state.
