Razzmatazz and glamour spark musical

If there were an award for musical productions in this town, Ken Stack would win first place for the Broadway-big musicals he keeps mounting on local stages. With “Guys and Dolls,” which plays through May 16 at The Grand, Stack is back on the marquee again with the glitter of Times Square, the glamour of the footlights, and enough community-style razzmatazz to keep you humming and tee-heeing well after the curtain comes down.

The show is, by the way, concurrently enjoying a long-running revival at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway, which shows how the indefatigable Stack keeps Maine in line with musical trends. New York, however, has been trying to revive itself with revivals, but Maine has had a handle on nostalgia for the good ol’ days of Broadway for a long time. In the last six years alone, local stages have mounted productions of “South Pacific,” “Anything Goes,” “Camelot,” “Music Man,” “Cabaret,” “Oklahoma!” and, now, “Guys and Dolls.” All of these were directed by Stack, a.k.a. Mr. Musical.

Stack’s “Guys and Dolls” falls into that auspicious grouping of “ambitious works.” Taking full advantage of The Grand’s newly installed backstage rigging system, Stack is thick into the scene-change challenge. With the pull of a chord, he brings us cartoonish backdrops of Times Square, a cafe in Havana, a sewer-based gambling hall, and, with the help of a few simple set pieces, the Save-A-Soul Mission and the Hot Box Nightclub. Even if they do add a half hour to the show, why not make all 17 of the scene changes? It is the type of question a good musical man like Stack has to ask.

Thank goodness Robert Bahr’s 21-piece orchestra gleefully fills the black-out spots. The time moves swiftly, and the show truly has the energy and spark that composer-lyricist Frank Loesser meant for it to have when he first produced it in 1950.

When it comes to musicals, Loesser was a master, too, but in another area. He took the steamy characters from Damon Runyon’s crap-shooting, night-clubbing underworld, put them in striped suits, polka-dot dresses, and New York accents. Then he cut them loose as the only two types apparently available to Broadway in the 1950s: guys who shoot crap and dolls who sing at the Hot Box.

Of course there are love interests, too. The Kewpie doll chanteuse Adelaide has been engaged 14 years to the crap-game organizer Nathan Detroit, and she’s ready to get married. And Save-A-Soul mission ary Sarah Brown is finding out about how opposites attract with arch sinner-gambler Sky Masterson. It’s all a gamble — giving your heart to a man who shoots crap — but this is musical theater afterall, and you can bet on the “happily ever after” part.

Through the years, the roles have been filled by big-name actors — Vivian Blaine, Robert Alda, Bob Hoskins, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. Stack has some local “big names,” too.

You won’t be able to take your eyes off of Dana Lazareth’s Adelaide. She’s a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball, and her comically sullen rendition of “Adelaide’s Lament” — not to mention the show greats “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Take Back Your Mink” — are the highlights of the evening.

Michael Weinstein does not come on with a bang, like the risk-taking conniver Detroit probably should. Weinstein plays it vulnerable, and although he misses the suavity, he wins with sweetness.

Musicals with this amount of mugging require actors with facial dexterity, and Steve Robbins is right on as Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Just try to count the number of snacks Robbins munches while he sings, dances, clowns, and delivers one-liners like nobody else can. He and his sidekick Andy Beardsley as Benny Southstreet are terrific.

Valerie LaPointe has the lovely soprano voice and prim demeanor to suit the Sarah part, and Bill Creighton has plenty of charming moments as Sky.

Ed Schenider is truly entertaining in the cameo role of Big Jule, the scamming gambler.

The rest of the smiling cast, in a variety of roles, comes and goes at an electric pace. Costumer Linda F. Grindle keeps it colorful, and choreographer Mary Drew does an admirable job with a cast that obviously skipped dance class in college.

“Guys and Dolls” will be performed 8 p.m. May 14 and 15, and 2 p.m. May 16 at The Grand in Ellsworth. For tickets, call 667-