There's a period of adjustment as you walk into panoramic Pease Auditorium. The youths portraying Nathan Detroit and his lowlife cohorts are less believable playing the ponies than they would be playing video games. Nor is director Eddie Mabry's youth brigade in line with the unique Damon Runyan patois, which adds an absurd formality to the flavorful venality. Fortunately, Mabry's choreography invariably hits the target.
Production designer Bob Croghan gamely scrunches the glitter of Manhattan under Pease's low ceiling. When Sky Masterson shoots craps for his salvation, Croghan regales us with an art deco sewer. With long legs seemingly stretching all the way to Jersey, Susan Roberts is impossible to ignore. After a shaky start on "Adelaide's Lament," Roberts decisively steals the show. She's adorably peeved in "Sue Me," and she's adorably crafty in "Marry the Man Today," a less familiar duet with Salvation Army princess Sarah Brown.
Kyle Villella flounders a bit as Nathan. Wearing his round hat more like a hobo than a heartthrob - and entirely missing the fastidiousness of Detroit's elocution -- Villella often clowns his way through a role that demands a dash of elegance. But his adoration of Adelaide and his terror of Big Jule seem heartfelt. It's a shame Corinne Gooden never attempts to capture Sarah Brown's simple regality. Yet her transformation from mousy New York missionary to Havana firecracker is quite extraordinary. Confident, bedimpled Richard Fromm has all the moves of the daring, charismatic Sky Masterson. But we'd all be more fortunate to see Fromm when he's closer to 30 than 20.
As the allure of the Swerling/Burrows script begins exerting its irresistible gravitational force, the youth of the CP corps ceases to matter. And the cavalcade of Frank Loesser hit tunes -- both familiar and forgotten -- is as breathtaking as ever.
