[For maximum effect, read the next paragraph aloud with a New York accent:]

So this gentleman Damon Runyon, a progeny of Kansas grown to manhood in Colorado, comes to the big city of Manhattan to pursue his vocation as a journalist in the early 1900s. His greatest success, though, turns out to be his fictional “fables of Broadway”, where a motley cast of “guys” pursue their vocations: penny ante gambling; recounting their tall tales in verbose orotund sentences couched in the historical present and spiced with a smattering of Yiddish; staying one step ahead of the law, the “big boys” of their chosen profession, and the “dolls” that seem to lurk around every corner to knock them off their desired courses. These fables prove to be so popular that, in 1950, they become a Broadway musical . . .

And what a musical it is! Though Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma pioneered the full integration of tunes with story on Broadway, Guys and Dolls elevated the genre to the sparkling heights of Strauss’ Die Fledermaus or Mozart’s The Magic Flute, while hitting the bullseye of pop culture at the Great American Songbook’s height. Production roadblocks meant that Frank Loesser’s jazzy songs came first, laying out the characters and plot twists of Runyon’s “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown” all by themselves; his lyrics teem with wit and warmth, his music stuffs soaring melodic earworms into compellingly clever forms. All book writer Abe Burrows had to do was sharpen the setting and exposition (and set up as many opportunities for ensemble dance numbers as possible) and voila! – an affectionate, rough-edged romp that sets petty crooks, burlesque dancers and revivalist missionaries at odds, then lets romance complicate the whole meshuggah situation.

Over the decades, this kind of big musical has become catnip for the Stratford Festival, sitting comfortably alongside Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Beckett, Arthur Miller and world premieres in the current season’s repertory. And mounted on the Festival Theatre’s unique thrust stage for the fourth time, Guys and Dolls plays every bit as spectacularly as when my wife and I saw it on our first trip here back in 2004. Veteran Donna Feore’s direction is ceaselessly vivid and lively, flowing into organic, breathtaking choreography from the “Runyonland” overture and the opening vocal canon “Fugue for Tinhorns” onward, backed by a live 20-piece orchestra. Onstage Manhattan street life feels as bustling and busy as when you’re there in person; the characters populating Nathan Detroit’s “oldest established floating crap game in New York”, Sister Sarah Brown’s Save-A-Soul Mission and Miss Adelaide’s Hot Box all bubble over with anticipation and zest for whatever may come their way. Even wandering roustabout Sky Masterson brings his own atmosphere with him: smitten by Sarah, crashing her mission and (based on a bet with Nathan) sweeping her away to Havana, where neither can find the words to express their feelings without breaking into song . . .

Whatever the overall impression, it’s the principal actors who make or break a show like this, and every one of them delivers here. Best known for screwball comedy, Dan Chameroy delivers a bluff, charismatic male lead in Sky, whether letting down his guard on “My Time of Day” or stepping up for the gamble of his life on “Luck Be A Lady”. Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane proves a top-notch ingenue, a bit strident in her high vocal range, but wonderfully steely on “I’ll Know” and comedically tipsy on “If I Were A Bell” (one of Miles Davis’ standby tunes). When sparks fly between the two on “I’ve Never Been in Love Before”, the effect is genuine and magical. Then there’s Mark Uhre’s Nathan and Jessica Rider Shaw’s Adelaide as a delightfully neurotic second couple, longtime lovers each afraid in their own way of commitment (“Adelaide’s Lament” and the duet “Sue Me” are both smartly, squirmingly hilarious). Meanwhile, sideline observers like Steve Patterson as mission colleague Arvide Abernathy (who nails the fatherly “More I Cannot Wish You”) and Steve Ross as Nathan’s comic colleague Nicely-Nicely Johnson (who steals the show on the title song and the uproarious “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat”) look on in bemusement, knowing from experience how these crazy kids’ tangles will work themselves out.

It’s a tribute to this cast’s talent and commitment that most of them – including Uhre, Chameroy and Sinclair-Brisbane in principal roles – are also in Feore’s remount of the nutty Shakespeare send-up Something Rotten (sometimes playing both productions on the same day). But the Stratford Festival is consistently good at theatrical miracles like this. And in its warmly humanist view of life out of the mainstream, Guys and Dolls itself is kind of miraculous: underneath its postwar, American-as-apple- pie optimism, this is a schmaltzy, mischievously naughty yet emotionally true take on how the love of your life can ambush you on any corner as you wait for something to happen – whether you’re singing your song, dancing your dance, pounding your big bass drum or just hanging out.

Guys and Dolls plays at the Stratford Festival Theatre until November 1st. For information, more sneak previews, schedules and ticket sales, click here.

— Rick Krueger