GUYS AND DOLLS AT THE ARTS THEATRE
A brilliant burlesque of basque clad beauties, a four -tier set where actors spring through 20 feet of athletic dynamism , an underground game of Crap where a group of gamblers enact desperation of high end gamers All this woven magically into the breathtaking production of Guys and Dolls tonight at the stylishly re-furbed Arts Theatre. The Damon Runyan/ Frank Loesser combination powered through the show – the script dense with a continuous Mafia Style coded language ( inventively, the programme sets you an after-show quiz to spot the coded language heard in the play).
Director/Choreographer Helen Petrova, wafted here on a cloud of dazzling talent straight from New York , alongside Musical director James Harvey, an impresario who can conduct six ‘reeds’ five trumpets, a horn five violins a cello a bass sensational percussion and a piano, with electronic cool make for a dynamic show.
That’s the kind of sensational accomplishment this fresh , emotional, version of a classic musical magicked up for an appreciative audience.
Cambridge Operatic Society the team behind all this action, sounds old fashioned enough – and true it’s survived 115 years of musical theatre. Yet its productions are anything but hidebound by traditon. They billed Guys n’ Dolls as a glitzy glamorous West End style night out. And it truly was. It is the funkiest, fastest version of this well -loved show I have seen. The performers switched into a relentless all-American 1950s idiom with not a vowel wobble . After a few minutes we left buttoned up old Cambridge for the hot pace of low-life New York and its hapless gamblers – its loveable lasses ( the dolls) and it began to feel like a high-end classy adventure .
The cast made the best of a delightful story by Damon Runyan. Nathan Detroit ( a flexible talented Scott Riley) runs a sleazy clutch of illegal Crap games in dives all over lower Broadway – the final scene is in a sewage work ( I think) . Vikki Jones plays Nathan’s fiancée of 14 years -dancer Miss Adelaide with exuberant energy and style. She is ever willing to marry him. Nathan comes up with every excuse under the sun to avoid this commitment and amusing though Miss Adelaide is – she investigates psychological cold symptoms to discover just why she is eternally defeated- it never happens. Damon Runyon’s celebrated script has more gags than observations but we get the picture. Love, in Miss Adelaide does not conquer all, in fact hardly makes a dent in Nathan’s iron determination to Get Rich Quick.
All photography by Peter Buncombe
Into this frenzied matrix of deceit and desire for potatoes ( yes that’s money as is Lettuce) strolls Sky Masterson ( ‘My own name actually) the gambler’s Gambler -Luke Thomas is the handsome dreamboat with a wonderful voice. He is destined for love.. It arrives as a brass marching band powers through the set and we meet Sarah at their HQ, she is a a committed reformer. in full Salvation Rig... No wonder, Sarah, Saskia Edwards-Korolezkuk could claim the title of “ Sublime voice of the Show’ A wonderful actor, she falls in love with Sky on his super-fake ( but funny) bet -laden visit to the Mission. These two have the chemistry poor Miss Adealid reads about in her medical book. The result is a set of sublime duets so beautiful the tears do well up . A rare experience
All the actors are excellent, the team is brillian the choreography spell binding . And yes, it is an evening out to rival a New York Broadway production.
