Play Review: ‘Guys and Dolls’ 

Guys and Dolls is a Broadway classic, now brought to life in Edmonton by Foote In The Door Productions. Their rendition is lively, colourful, and fun. 

The play revolves around an underground crap game in the 1950s run by Nathan Detroit (Russ Farmer). With no place to hold the next game, his gambling clients are breathing down his neck. Detroit has to find $1,000 to hold down a new location, and to get it, he naturally makes a bet. If Sky Masterson (Aidan Heaman), a notorious gambler, can’t take Sarah Brown (Kit Kroeker), the leader of a local church mission, to Havanna, he has to pay up. 

What follows is a winding, chaotic story, with no shortage of sideplots and new characters popping up. It’s hard to follow at times — and it’s a long play. But the cast and crew kept up with the demands of the script and managed to keep the audience engaged for the duration of the play.

Guys and Dolls is a Broadway musical, and the Edmonton cast and orchestra did not disappoint on that front. The music was incredible, and it being a live orchestra — although you couldn’t see them — made it extra lively. 

And the cast had some beautiful singers. Kroeker and Ruth Wong-Miller, who plays Detroit’s fiancee Miss Adelaide, had stunning vocals. They stole the show with their numbers, and the one they did together was just as great. 

And of course with music and songs comes dance numbers. Aside from a few timing mishaps, they were executed incredibly well. Especially considering the amount of people involved with some of the numbers.

Miss Adelaide was probably one of my favourite characters, and performances, of the play. She was over-the-top, always entering the stage with a flourish, and making her mark on each scene she was in. And Wong-Miller played her wonderfully. 

The colourful trio of Nicely Nicely Johnson (Aaron Schaan), Rusty Charlie (Madison Lalonde), and Benny Southstreet (Brad Corcoran) were a great comical touch too.

I have to give props to the set designers too. The set up was brilliant, consisting mainly of three fold-out buildings. Normally, appearing as just any building on a street, when unfolded it took the audience from the streets of New York to a mission to Havana to the sewers seamlessly. 

If a whirlwind of a gambling, mission-saving, romantic play sounds like your cup of tea, Guys and Dolls is well worth seeing. The cast and crew did an amazing job executive the chaotic play and it was an entertaining three hours.

Guys and Dolls is playing at Théâtre Servus Credit Union until November 30.