LIVE: Guys and Dolls @ Berkshire Stage Company [Berkshire on Stage]
This is the one, the classic that Barrington Stage Company was born to do. Guys and Dolls succeeds where musicals and plays about nobler characters fall short. This down-to-earth show was first penned in 1950 and took Broadway by storm. Its magical ingredients are the perfect concoction of words, music, dance and story. It all begins with a bet, and from there on we are off to the races, so to speak.
The show focuses on a quartet of characters. Nathan Detroit (Michael Thomas Holmes) is trying to stay a step ahead of the police and find a place to hold his craps game. He needs front money and bets another gambler, Sky Masterson (Matthew Risch), that he can’t persuade Save-A-Soul missionary sister Sarah Brown (Morgan James) to go with him to Cuba. Meanwhile, Nathan is doing his best to stay outside the matrimonial clutches of his long-suffering fiancée, Miss Adelaide (Leslie Kritzer).
The creators of Guys and Dolls – Frank Loesser (music and lyrics) and Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows (Book) – called the show a “Fable of Broadway” and its recreation of life on the street is naive, impulsive, self-centered, and lively. Gamblers and gangsters mix it up with molls and missionaries, propelled along by one of the sprightliest musical scores ever written.
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