AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Additions for March 3, 2009

Time Out New York

Review: Guys and Dolls
Luck is not a lady with this ill-cast revival of the classic tuner.

Enertainment Weekly

Review: Guys and Dolls
The trouble with Jersey Boys director Des McAnuff's Broadway revival is that too often it plays like a very good community theater production, albeit one with considerably pricier sets.

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First Night Reviews

New York Times

It’s a Cinch That the Bum Is Under the Thumb of Some Little Broad
The uninspired new revival of “Guys and Dolls” provides a valuable lesson in the importance of chemistry by demonstrating what can happen without it.

New York Daily News

'Guys and Dolls' tries and falls
"Take back your mink, take back your pearls," fumes the fed-up fiancée Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls." Des McAnuff, who directed the flatfooted new Broadway...

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Guys and Dolls
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.

Newsday

Theater review: Guys and Dolls
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.

New York Post

This revival is a bad bet
'Guys & Dolls' bores in B'way return

ny1

NY1 Theater Review: "Guys And Dolls"
...Talent notwithstanding, and there is a lot of it, this "Guys and Dolls" is so leaden and uninspired, it might as well be called "Men and Women...

Hartford Courant

New York Stage: Revival of 'Guys and Dolls' Recalls Damon Runyon's New York
It's a joy ride back to the '50s with the splashy, jam-packed revival of "Guys and Dolls."

Bergen Record

Feldberg: 'Guys and Dolls' review
...a joyless perversion of the buoyant 1950 musical.

Associated Press

A Disappointing 'Guys and Dolls' Hits Times Square
Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Harry the Horse. Liver Lips Louie. Brandy Bottle Bates. Benny Southstreet. Scranton Slim. Big Jule. Not to mention the Hot Box girls and the folks at Save-A-Soul Mission. What have they done to you colorful characters?.

Bloomberg.com

`Guys and Dolls' Returns to Broadway With Spectacular Crap Game: Review 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.

USA Today

'Guys and Dolls' Broadway revival isn't exactly a sure bet
Imagine having dinner in a fabulous restaurant with two couples. One pair is delightfully witty and has sizzling chemistry; the other two seem so awkward that it's almost painful to be with them. ...

Variety

Review: Guys and Dolls
...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.

Hollywood Reporter

Theater Review: Guys and Dolls
Bottom Line: The show's still great, but this "Guys and Dolls" should have been a whole lot better.

Back Stage

Guys and Dolls reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
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.

TheaterMania

Peter Filichia's Diary: Runyon Doesn't Land
I’m a little surprised by Des McAnuff.

Review: Guys and Dolls
Des McAnuff's uneven production of this classic Frank Loesser musical is a simultaneously razzmatazz and tawdry affair

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Guys and Dolls
Is anything more dispiriting than knowing within the first minutes that the revival you’re watching of a traditionally hilarious musical comedy isn’t going to be funny? That’s exactly the specter haunting the Nederlander Theatre, where director Des McAnuff is ostensibly presenting Guys and Dolls, albeit one that kicks off with petty theft, bank robbery, and murder (well, sort of). Rolling in the aisles yet, kids? . . .

CurtainUp

Review: Guys and Dolls
A revival that doesn't do justice to Runyon's flavorful vernacular.

 

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Guys and Dolls on Broadway: A floating crap game of uncertain direction
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...