So much more than just words, actors’ bodies help to tell stories on stage.
This applies for any performance, but it is especially notable in musicals, where dance is woven into large portions of the play. An old musical theater adage says that in a musical, when the emotion is too great for spoken word, the characters sing, and when the emotion is too great for song, the characters dance. Dance is seen as the ultimate form of expression and storytelling in this dramatic form, and you will find no better example of this than in “Guys and Dolls,” Merely Players’ next musical.
While the gender roles are starkly divided in a show like “Guys and Dolls,” the movement allows us as choreographers to blur the lines in playful ways. The Guys (Crapshooters, Gamblers and Scamps) have their fair share of typically masculine movement; aggressive and powerful, staccato accents, closed fists and straight backs. However, the men of the play spend a great deal of time whining about the state of their “game” – whether or not they will win, or if they will have the privilege of “playing” at all. Now we see closed fists turning into clasped hands begging for another roll of the dice, staccato movements are arms thrown up in frustration and petulance. Their movement in numbers like “Luck Be A Lady” chart this fragile dance between their pride and abject failure.
The Dolls have similar opportunities to play. Numbers like “Bushel and a Peck” have a sweetness, inspiring bubbly choreography where hips and shoulders sway, and the long lines of their arms and legs create tableaux of softness. During the course of the play, the leading Dolls’ frustration with their partners leads to a change in their movement. Strict Sarah Brown finds herself in a drunken brawl in Havana, tangoing her way into a frenzy and pulling bewildered Sky into an assertive kiss. Fed up Adelaide turns what is expected to be a seductive strip routine into a breakup song for the ages with “Take Back Your Mink.” No more is the Dolls’ movement designed for the Guys at the Hotbox Nightclub; it becomes a perfect expression of their own freedom and a celebration of their sexuality, effectively “taking back” themselves.
Creating these dances is laborious; hours spent listening to music, charting the story and movement of every person on stage. There is a moment for every dance, where inspiration hits and steps start to flow into each other. These are the moments that a choreographer lives for, and we hope our audiences will enjoy as our performers’ emotions become far too great, and their only channel of expression becomes that of dance.
“Guys and Dolls” runs April 25 to May 11. The show is sold out, but you can join the waitlist online at merelyplayers.org, or arrive at the Merely Underground 30 minutes before showtime and purchase any unclaimed tickets.
Zachary Chiero is the artistic associate of Merely Players.
