Guys and Dolls

Guys and Dolls (1950), a musical comedy by Jo Swerling, Abe Burrows (book), Frank Loesser (music, lyrics). [46th Street Theatre, 1,200 perf.; Tony, NYDCC Awards.] Nathan Detroit ( Sam Levene), who runs the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York, needs to find a place to gamble, a special problem since high rollers, including the biggest plunger of all, Sky Masterson ( Robert Alda), are in town and ready to play. When Sky boasts that he can have any woman he wants, Nathan sees his chance. He wagers that Sky cannot win any woman Nathan points to and Sky takes the bet. At that moment, Sister Sarah ( Isabel Bigley) of the Save‐a‐Soul Mission comes marching by, and Nathan points to her. Sky lures her to Havana, but in the end Sarah converts him to her ways. When he wins big at dice he forces all the losers to attend a revival meeting at the mission. Sky wins Sarah's heart and Nathan agrees to wed Adelaide ( Vivian Blaine), a nightclub singer with whom he has had a fourteen‐year engagement. Notable songs: Guys and Dolls; Adelaide's Lament; A Bushel and a Peck; If I Were a Bell; I'll Know; I've Never Been in Love Before; Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat. Based on Damon Runyon's short stories and billed as “a musical fable of Broadway,” the Cy Feuer and E. Martin entertainment created its own special, raffish world, with people sporting such colorful monikers as Nicely‐Nicely Johnson and Harry the Horse. Howard Barnes of the Herald Tribune noted that “the work uses music and dancing as embellishments to the libretto, rather than making the latter a loose clothesline for assorted capers,” while John Chapman in selecting his Best Plays thought its cohesiveness and brilliance made it better than any straight play of the season. The show has enjoyed regular revivals, including a highly praised mounting by Great Britain's National Theatre in 1982 and popular Broadway revivals in 1976 and 1992. [Alfred] Damon RUNYON (1884–1946), born in Manhattan, Kansas, was long admired for his columns depicting colorful Broadway life for the Hearst papers and for his short stories of the same demimonde. In 1935 he collaborated with Howard Lindsay on the gangster play A Slight Case of Murder, and his colorful Manhattan characters showed up in several movies as well as in Guys and Dolls. Biography: Damon Runyon: A Life, Jimmy Breslin, 1992.