I have long felt this, and seeing it again tonight at Carnegie Hall reinforced this. Great book, great score, great lyrics - a panorama of wonderful characters large and small, fun story.
2 hours and 45 minutes fly by.
Tonight's staged concert version was modified rapture. Nathan Lane and Megan Mulally were as fine wonderful funny a Nathan & Adelaide as one is likely every to have the pleasure of seeing - end of story.
The supporting cast was full of standouts - the gamblers, the mission folk - Len Cariou doing a sterling 'More I Cannot Wish You."
The demerits? Well, Sierra Boggess has a lovely voice, but she's never been an actress - the style of the piece evaded her, as did the acting. Patrick Wilson? Big voice - no clue how to act in the same piece with the rest of the cast. He's pretty. And Skye is tough. Robert Alda was a tough guy, not a pretty boy. Jerry Orbach would have been a great Sky. Pretty boys need not apply.
And one (well two) odd director choices. Sister Sarah never wore a Mission Bonnet, not even on her first entrance. Looked odd, like, "no hat on me, darling' - and at the end of the show, after 'Marry the Man Today' - what has happened at least in the 10 or 12 productions I have seen, is what was written - when the Follow the Fold Band comes in, Sky is in Mission Uniform, playing the bass drum.
This is a PERFECT ending. 'Marry the man Today and change him after' go the lyrics. That's what Sarah has done. And everyone calls him Brother MAsterson in this scene. The costume 'joke' is also a character 'joke'. Magic.
Not for Mr O'Brien and Mr Wilson. Sky enters with the band wearing the same gambler suit and hat he has worn all night. The Gambler wins, he's not changing his ways. IMHO, doesn't work, and deflates the joy of the ending as written.
Guys & Dolls also reminds one that one doesn't have to have extraneous dance numbers in a show. Guys has none - 0- though Mr Bergasse's back flip heavy gamblers dance in the sewer told no story - as the number always does in other A list hands. So a 'book' number was turned inti a chroeographer's 'look at me' number.
And the orchestra of St Lukes - well, like the nYPO at Sweeney Todd - they don't really 'get' this style of music. There playing is not idiomatic - the brassiness is missing a bit.
I would have loved an Encores pickup band of Broadway sidemen on stage.
And then there was the VERY loud amplification of voices, frequently obscuring the orchestra completely. ANd not helped by the very live acoustic - the long echo time - at Carnegie Hall.
A night to be treasured for sure, but somehow for me the parts were greater than the whole.
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