Guys and Dolls

You see, our detention auto repair class up at Rindge let out at eight. So I'm walking up past the auditorium and I see all these Harvies around. Some kind of show. So I sneak in the side door and there I am, sitting pretty, fifth row center. Weren't too many people though, should have been, damn good show.

It's about this guy, Nathan Detroit. He runs a crap game, but there's no place to play. So he bets a Sky Masterson that this Sky guy can't con a Salvation Army girl into going to San Juan with him (some Harvie in back of me said it was really supposed to be Havana, but the Commies screwed it up). Oh yeah, Nathan's got a stripper he's engaged to for fourteen years, named Adelaide, she's the best thing in the show. She knows how to move. And she's got a great voice. Kind of like a cop siren with a cold.

The scenes with lots of people aren't as good as the smaller ones. Sometimes the chorus doesn't seem to know where it's supposed to be. Like where we guys hang around streetcorners, these show guys just sort of mill. But a lot of the time they're supposed to be hanging around streetcorners, so it's OK. And when they shoot crap, they got a great sewer.

But if there are only a couple or three guys on the stage, it's a lot of fun. Especially Nathan and Adelaide. Their real names are Peter Skolnik and Sydne Jo Kalet. They make faces together, and sing together, and sometimes she gets angry at him, and he gets down on his knees, and they look at each other real funny, and then she cries, and everybody applauds. They've got as much class as fuel injection.

Two kids named Carol Schechtman and Roger Kozol play Masterson and the Salvation Army girl. She's kind of cute for a missionary and sings real sweet and pretty. He's supposed to be cool and tough, and to hang real loose, but I don't know about that. He seemed like an all-right guy.

They dance a lot in the show. Not like West Side Story, sort of messy. But this one guy, Ron Porter, was real good. Of course he thought up the dances himself. The girls were supposed to work in a grubby club. They do a strip number and are pretty good lookers, if you like that sort of thing, you know, if you got a good seat and crane your neck right.

This tall, thin guy named Horne led the orchestra and stretched out a couple of things and added a few things to the music. The sound kind of bounced your head a little, cause it's a big place, but I liked it. Sometimes, though the orchestra guys and the chorus guys didn't seem to be going the same place at the same time, but they can get over that. And the tunes are as good as the Stones'.

The show teaches you a lesson: marry a girl who likes to shoot crap. I knew that already, but this is a fun way to learn. When I grow up I want to be Nathan Detroit.