Broadway Blogs - Review Roundup: GUYS & DOLLS and More...

Tony Award nominee Oliver Platt stars as Nathan Detroit in this brand new production of Guys And Dolls, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Des McAnuff, with choreography by Sergio Trujillo.

Packed with such classic hits as "Fugue for Tinhorns," "A Bushel and a Peck," "Adelaide's Lament," "I'll Know," "Guys and Dolls," "More I Cannot Wish You," "Luck Be A Lady," and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," Guys and Dolls features music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.

David Rooney, Variety: "The opening image in Des McAnuff's strangulated revival of "Guys and Dolls" is of Damon Runyon pounding his typewriter, framing the production unequivocally in a fictional world. But the unintended effect has been to process the author's richly slangy, flavorful valentine to a vanished New York demimonde of hustlers, gamblers, floozies and gangsters into a cartoon of manufactured colors. Fronted by four likable leads whose collective charisma never rises above medium wattage, the production sucks the personality out of an American musical-theater classic. The consolation is that even in this misconceived presentation, the show itself is too good not to be at least minimally entertaining."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "Sadly, Sky and Sarah aren't the focus for more than a couple of scenes at a time. It doesn't help that the supporting cast is inconsistent, or that Des McAnuff's direction can suffer from acute cuteness. Some of Sky and Nathan's colleagues seem more like suburban dads than lovable street types. Mary Testa, otherwise winningly droll as a Salvation Army general, is forced to interrupt Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat with a tacky mock-diva solo. Given such transgressions, this Guys and Dolls never stays afloat long enough to transport us."

Ben Brantley, New York Times: "Whatever special substance it is that makes old shows feel new-born and artificial musicals ring truer than life, this "Guys and Dolls" left it behind in the laboratory. Instead this production, which opened Sunday and also stars Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham, provides a valuable lesson in the importance of chemistry by demonstrating what can happen without it - even to a show as seemingly foolproof as "Guys and Dolls." With grade-A songs by Frank Loesser and a book by Abe Burrows (who officially shares credit with Jo Swerling), this 1950 classic is widely regarded as the paradigm for a well-made musical comedy."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "Director Des McAnuff has put together a perpetual-motion, high-concept, high-tech revival of "Guys and Dolls." Unfortunately, the curiously bland results don't translate into high entertainment."

Frank Sheck, Hollywood Reporter: "'Guys and Dolls'  is a nearly perfect musical, which it has to be to survive the frequent mistreatment it receives in the new revival staged by Des McAnuff. Filled with lavish directorial touches that add little to the proceedings and featuring several surprisingly pallid performances, the show still manages to provide a good time thanks to the brilliance of Frank Loesser's score and the hilarity of Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows' book. But those with strong memories of the superb 1992 revival starring Nathan Lane, Faith Prince and Peter Gallagher will find much to quibble about here.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: "Broadway has always been a floating crap game. But as this show-killing recession deepens, beleaguered producers are clearly feeling like every new opening is like attempting a Hail Mary pass against Big Jule's crooked dice. The first Broadway revival of the musical "Guys and Dolls" since Nathan Lane and Faith Prince cracked up the Rialto with their follies nearly two decades ago offers a sense of what it must have felt like to been one of the victims during the St. Valentine's Day massacre. You're on the wrong end of a whole lot of intense, desperate scatter-shot."

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: "The show's leading ladies fare much better. Gilmore Girls veteran Lauren Graham - making her Broadway debut as Miss Adelaide, nightclub singer and Nathan's perpetual fiancée - has a sure, strong voice, and wins some fresh laughs out of her durable solos like 'Adelaide's Lament.' But Graham, who follows such superlative recent Adelaides as Faith Prince (in the 1992 Broadway revival) and Jane Krakowski (in a remarkable 2005 London run) hasn't yet managed to fully inhabit the role. It's hard to play a simpleton, and the strains of the effort (and Graham's underlying intelligence) too often flash on her face. Meanwhile, Kate Jennings Grant employs her nimble body and lovely soprano to lovely effect as Sarah Brown, the missionary who falls for Sky."

Adam Perlman, Backstage: "Did someone forget to baptize Guys and Dolls? Seems unlikely - but how else to explain why a nigh-perfect musical entertainment has been plunged into limbo, suspended between cartoon and noir in director Des McAnuff's appalling revival. Of course, there are worse places than limbo - but we go there too. Perhaps McAnuff thought he was directing The Divine Comedy?"

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Instead of glitz and tricks, McAnuff would have been far better off casting leads who could sing Frank Loesser's dazzling songs in all their glory and vividly breathe life into the high-rollers and Holy Rollers created by Runyon and adapted by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows."

Matt Windman, amNew York: "You know that a production of "Guys and Dolls" has gone terribly wrong when a minor character like General Cartwright makes a bigger impression than Sky Masterson, Sarah Brown, Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide put together. And if anyone is to blame, it is director Des McAnuff ("Jersey Boys"), whose new Broadway revival is a misconceived fiasco."

Linda Winer, Newsday: In the crapshoot called Broadway, "Guys and Dolls" is as close as the theater gets to a sure thing. Or at least it seemed that way until Des McAnuff's tarted-up and dumbed-down revival opened last night at the handsomely remodeled Nederlander Theatre. Oddly cast and oppressively overproduced, the show is so busy with dizzying cinematic scenery, hard-edge choreography and updated musical arrangements that it's hard to find the people, much less the pulse."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NYPost: "At the Nederlander Theatre, where Des McAnuff's glitzy revival of the 1950 classic opened last night, they dazzle us with their handsome costumes and their clever projections (by Paul Tazewell and Dustin O'Neill). They serenade us with an 18-piece orchestra firing on all cylinders. We start believing: This time, it's really going to happen! But whereas Adelaide eventually gets her ring, we're left at the altar once again, wondering how things went wrong."

Malcolm Johnson, Hartford Courant: "It's a joy ride back to the '50s with the splashy, jam-packed revival of "Guys and Dolls." Des McAnuff's lavish production based on Damon Runyon's story opened Sunday night at the Nederlander Theatre. It re-establishes the Frank Loesser-Jo Swerling-Abe Burrows "musical fable" as one of the greatest evergreens of the lyric theater. With a cast headed by Oliver Platt, Craig Bierko, Kate Jennings Grant and Lauren Graham, this revival has an admirable lineup of talent, though Graham's Miss Adelaide does not come into her own until the second act."

Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg News: "Well into the second act of the high-voltage Broadway revival of "‘Guys and Dolls," something exhilarating happens onstage. It's just a game of craps set in the sewers beneath Times Square, but it's magic."

Robert Feldberg, NY Star Ledger: "Guys and Dolls" is one of the great shows in American musical-theater history. Its colorful characters, based on the creations of Damon Runyon; rapturously wonderful songs by Frank Loesser and distinctive comic sensibility fit together with rare perfection. Experience tells us, however, that the quality of a show will not be realized in every production. And, indeed, the version directed by Des McAnuff, which opened Sunday at the Nederlander Theatre, is, for the most part, a joyless perversion of the buoyant 1950 musical."

When the director of an amateur theatre company defended their mounting of a George S. Kaufman play without obtaining rights or paying royalties by saying, "It's just a small, insignificant, little theater in a small, insignificant, little town," Kaufman responded, "Then we'll send you all to a small, insignificant, little jail."

The grosses are out for the week ending 3/1/2009 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: 33 VARIATIONS (4.1%), PAL JOEY (2.0%), THE AMERICAN PLAN (0.9%),

Down for the week was: THE 39 STEPS (-26.8%), MARY POPPINS (-22.2%), SHREK THE MUSICAL (-21.9%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-20.3%), CHICAGO (-19.5%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-14.7%), AVENUE Q (-13.9%), THE LITTLE MERMAID (-12.6%), THE LION KING (-11.6%), SOUTH PACIFIC (-9.9%), JERSEY BOYS (-8.9%), MAMMA MIA! (-8.8%), AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (-8.0%), IN THE HEIGHTS (-5.7%), WICKED (-5.3%), GUYS AND DOLLS (-3.8%), HEDDA GABLER (-1.5%),