Thursday, November 1, 2007
By Judith Newmark
POST-DISPATCH THEATER CRITIC
Even though "The Drowsy Chaperone" spoofs musical comedies of the 1920s, it has one quality that really shines on today's Broadway scene: originality.
It isn't based on a movie. It wasn't built around a star. And it's certainly not a revival.
This witty romp began as a skit at a bachelor party. By now it's won five Tony awards and hit the road complete with big dance numbers, a complicated set and gorgeous Roaring '20s costumes. But it still enjoys the breezy feel of an in-joke shared among good friends.
Written by Bob Martin (the groom-to-be at that party) and Don McKellar, with songs by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, "The Drowsy Chaperone" opens in a run-down apartment where the Man in Chair is feeling blue. (So would you, if you had to live there.) Because he's feeling blue, he puts on an old record. ("Yes," he snaps, "a RECORD.") It's his favorite Broadway musical, the 1928 hit "The Drowsy Chaperone."
Let's be clear: There's really no such musical. But the one that miraculously comes to life, transforming the dingy dwelling and filling it with comical characters, feels like all of those old shows rolled up into one.
A famous entertainer is giving up Broadway to marry the man she loves. But her producer, in debt to singing-and-dancing gangsters, doesn't want her to quit. In the meantime, the entertainer's drunken chaperone is supposed to keep the bride and groom apart. When she fails, the bride spies her blindfolded groom roller-skating, which leads to a mix-up. Then …
Confusing? Not really. The Man explains it all, spicing up the idiotic story with "true" tales of backstage gossip. Jonathan Crombie, who plays our guide to the past, delivers a sweet, wounded take on a lonely man.
There are also delicious performances from Nancy Opel as the world-weary chaperone, twins Paul Riopelle and Peter Riopelle as the talented thugs disguised as bakers (or maybe the Two Stooges) and Andrea Chamberlain as the bride. In her big number "Show Off," Chamberlain turns herself into a one-woman fireworks show, avidly demonstrating all the show-biz fun she swears to give up for love.
Even the little touches are smart. "Ignore the lyrics," the man advises us before the "Bride's Lament," excellent advice for many numbers in many different shows. The tiny digs at recent musicals hit home; the relationship between rich Mrs. Tottendale (Georgia Engel, of the old "Mary Tyler Moore" show) and her underling, called Underling (Robert Dorfman), echoes all the Jeeves jokes that once delighted people who didn't have servants themselves.
"The Drowsy Chaperone" isn't a blockbuster, and it will nicely suit the small theaters that are bound to pick it up. But why wait? For people who love and know musicals, it's lots of fun right now.
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Thursday, November 15, 2007
Charlotte Observer review (Charlotte)
By Julie York Coppens
There are two shows called "The Drowsy Chaperone" now playing in Charlotte -- and both of them do, as the star of one "Drowsy Chaperone" puts it, "what a musical is supposed to do."
In other words, you couldn't have a bad time in Belk Theater this week if you tried.
The first "Drowsy Chaperone," the one you're buying a ticket to, is a top-drawer tour of a recent Broadway hit. It features a lonely Man in Chair, whose collection of vintage Broadway cast recordings provides sanctuary from the cruel, dreary world.
The second "Chaperone," stuffed into the other like the sweet filling of a crusty cannoli, is a musical that never was -- a faux relic of the 1920s that bursts to life in the guy's apartment, via two scratchy 78s, an old turntable and a bit of theater magic.
The spell, like so many of the "Drowsy Chaperone's" pleasures, takes us by surprise.
"I hate theater," the Man in Chair tells us at the start, as we're all sitting in the dark waiting for the show(s) to begin. "It's so disappointing, isn't it?"
And then we're transported.
Director Casey Nicholaw and company have taken as much care with this traveling "Chaperone," its look, sound and feel, as the Man in Chair does with his cherished records.
Even if Broadway were open for business -- a six-day-old stagehands' strike has darkened some two dozen shows -- you'd be hard-pressed to find a New York cast more capable or engaging. In fact, several in this road company are veterans of "The Drowsy Chaperone" on Broadway, including comedienne Georgia Engel (you'll remember her from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), who plays the daffy hostess of a zany showbiz wedding. Among the rest are some formidable troupers: Nancy Opel, a Tony nominee for "Urinetown," plays the boozy title role; James Moye cracks us up as Aldolpho, the Chaperone's utterly inept Latin lover; dramatic actor Robert Dorfman brings a winking dignity to his butler's role; and Cliff Bemis, another recognizable character actor, plays a harried follies producer.
Did I mention identical-twin actors Paul and Peter Riopelle as a pair of gangsters disguised as pastry chefs?
As for the musical's bride-to-be, a Broadway "it" girl giving up fame for marriage, actor Andrea Chamberlain really is the dangerously adorable, infinitely talented performer her character claims to be. (In one of several witty "Chaperone" numbers, "Show Off," we see some of Janet's stage skills, from trick-roping to snake-charming.)
The other "Drowsy Chaperone" belongs to Jonathan Crombie, whose Man in Chair is our guide through the sweet, silly songs and pointless book scenes of the 1928 opus. The made-up "Chaperone" is one of his favorites, and toward the end of the real show, we understand why.
Crombie's Man is more volatile and effeminate than Broadway's original Man in Chair, Bob Martin (who co-created "Chaperone," with Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison and Don McKellar). These heightened eccentricities give Crombie a bigger comic payoff at the show's "intermission" -- he gets a potty break, we don't -- when the Man reveals a personal detail and tells us, around a mouthful of Nutri-Grain bar, that "you shouldn't go making assumptions about people." On the downside, we're slower to warm up to this Man, and not so hopeful in his happy ending.
Still, with this "Chaperone" -- make that "Chaperones"-- the audience is in good hands.
An old Broadway cast album comes to life. 1 hour, 45 minutes.
WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
WHERE: Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St.
ADMISSION: $25-$70.
DETAILS: 704-372-1000; blumenthalcenter.org.
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By GREG HAYMES, Staff writer
First published: Friday, November 23, 2007
Times Union review (Schenectady)
SCHENECTADY -- "I hate theater."
That's the opening line of "The Drowsy Chaperone," a wild and wacky slice of musical theater that's running on the Mainstage at Proctors through Sunday. Naturally, it got a big laugh at Tuesday's opening night performance.
But of course neither the character who intones the line with deadpan grace -- named simply Man in Chair -- nor the nearly full house of theater fans really believed it. In fact, "The Drowsy Chaperone" could only be written by someone -- two writers, Bob Martin and Don McKellar, to be precise -- who truly believe in the magic and the power of the theater.
The plot is wafer-thin to the point of transparency, and the characters of "The Drowsy Chaperone" are a nonstop cavalcade of musical theater cliches:
There's Janet, the glamorous star who wants to give up her career for the man she loves. There's Robert, her Ken-doll-like husband-to-be. There's Feldzieg, her blustery, self-serving agent who wants to stop the wedding. There's the title character, Janet's blowsy, booze-addled companion whose job it is to see that Janet doesn't see Robert on the wedding day until they're at the altar.
You get the picture, right? Hilarity ensues.
But the genius of "The Drowsy Chaperone" is that it's not really just a ridiculously goofy parody of a 1920s Broadway musical. Rather, it's a glitzy, inanely silly, vintage Broadway musical that breaks out in the middle of a one-man sad-sack comedy.
Man in Chair -- a sad, lonely neurotic guy -- is the heart of the show, and it all takes place in his shabby apartment. He puts a vinyl original cast album on his record player, and the musical springs to life as the characters sing and tap dance and run through awful old vaudeville routines as they transform his dingy dwelling into something colorful and fun.
Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison penned a number of memorable songs for the show within the show, the highlight being "As We Stumble Along," and the production numbers are a hoot, especially the surreal "Message From a Nightingale" and the even more surreal "Bride's Lament."
Man in Chair -- played superbly by Jonathan Crombie as a kind of contemporary Buster Keaton -- guides the audience through the show, occasionally stopping the action to offer commentary, both snide and sentimental, occasionally even joining in the show. And the more Man in Chair is involved in "The Drowsy Chaperone," the better it is.
The acting is appropriately over-the-top, with top comic honors going to James Moye as the Latin lothario Aldolpho, Nancy Opel as the chaperone and Georgia Engel (every bit as ditzy as she was on the classic "Mary Tyler Moore Show") as Mrs. Tottendale. Intriguing performances to be sure, as they're not only playing the characters, but also playing of the roles of the actors who are playing the characters.
And Andrea Chamberlain is wonderful as Janet -- displaying a gorgeous voice, as well as precision comic timing.
Directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, the show moves along at a rapid, if not frenetic clip, and there's an unexpected delight around almost every corner.
To once again quote Man in Chair, "I just want to be entertained. Isn't that the point? Amen." And certainly "The Drowsy Chaperone" does that, but it also has a big heart. It's not merely a parody of Broadway musicals; it's also a love letter.
Greg Haymes can be reached at 454-5742 or ghaymes@timesunion.com.
Theater review
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For The Inquirer Hushed silence. Darkness. We wait for the lights to come up onstage at the Academy of Music, but instead we hear a voice say, "I hate theater." Then we see Man in Chair (Jonathan Crombie), a bendy, droopy, flappy sort of person in an oversize sweater and corduroys, sitting, well, in a chair. He has the blues ("self-conscious anxiety leading to a nonspecific sadness").
It isn't theater Man in Chair hates, but contemporary theater; actually, he hates the contemporary world. He hates intermissions (this show has none). He wants magic, romance, a "little tune to take away with you," a break from reality. Check, check, check, check. This is good-time fluff, an over-the-top spoof and homage, a nostalgic valentine.
He asks us to imagine that it's November 1928 at the Morosco Theatre ("Remember when it got cold in November? November is the new August. . . . ") He begs our indulgence as he plays a record (yes, an actual LP) of one of his favorite old musicals, The Drowsy Chaperone. And the show springs into colorful, silly, musical life.
The musical within the play has a perfectly preposterous plot: A show-biz star (terrific Andrea Chamberlain, who played the role on Broadway) falls in love and decides to give up the stage and marry. Her chaperone (terrific Nancy Opel) is distracted by vodka and a big-haired Latin lover (James Moye). The well-groomed groom (Mark Ledbetter) is chaperoned by the best man (Richard Vida who can really "sell it"). The wedding - hosted by Mrs. Tottendale (Georgia Engel, delightful and ditzy) who will herself become a bride - is on, then it's off, then it's on again.
One goofily spectacular production number after another materializes in Man in Chair's dreary apartment - the fridge door opens and an entire bridal party emerges - to accommodate subplots involving gangsters disguised as pastry chefs who are converted to song-and-dance men, and an aviatrix named Trix (Fran Jaye).
Everything about the show - the music, the political incorrectness of the ridiculous lyrics, the costumes, the hairdos - captures an old-timey feel. Created as a wedding present for friends, The Drowsy Chaperone went on to the Toronto Fringe and then to mainstream theater (Toronto, Los Angeles, Broadway), scooping up a ton of prizes (five Tonys, seven Drama Desk Awards, five L.A. Drama Critics Awards, etc., etc.) along the way.
Audiences have been loving it because, like the sadsack Man in Chair, everybody needs a little tune, a little break from ringing phones, a guaranteed happy ending.
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
February 28, 2008
By Christopher Rawson
On a Tuesday night when an ice storm was predicted and a presidential slugfest was certain, where better to be than at the Benedum, wafted into clouds of musical comedy silliness with "The Drowsy Chaperone"?
Maybe that doesn't make any sense, but neither does "Drowsy," which is half its charm. The other half is the contrasting tartness of the running commentary of the deftly named Man in Chair, who is exactly that.
AUDIENCE ADVISORY: "Drowsy" is just like "The Lion King." That is, the first five minutes is the best part of the show. Don't be late.
The difference is that in "Lion King," the wonder of that initial gathering of animals at Pride Rock is never fully matched by what follows. But in "Drowsy," the initial commentary by Man in Chair, as we all sit hopefully in the dark, sets up his infatuated comic commentary throughout.
Man in Chair, you see, is a solitary soul in a drab bed-sit in, oh, Queens or maybe South Oakland, who lives his richest imaginative life in his lovingly maintained collection of cast albums. (I suppose you think that makes him gay, and we do have our carefully fed suspicions, including the fact that he says he's not, a possible giveaway.)
On this evening, he's dying to share the album of a forgotten deliciously fictitious 1920s musical, "The Drowsy Chaperone." But not before that monologue in the dark, that sweet time of theatrical anticipation, when he bonds with us by admitting, "I hate theater." He means he loves it so much he hates its failure, along with most modern musicals ("please let it be short ... and keep the actors out of the audience"), and prays for the return of Cole Porter ("Elton John, stop this charade!").
He calls the initial scratching of his record (remember records?) a time machine, and presto, as it plays, the long-ago cast materializes in his apartment -- so alive in his head, it comes to life for us, too. But we have the added advantage of Man's accompanying notes, as he stops the action to note political incorrectness or fill us in on the actors' scandals.
The show itself is a conventional frothy tale of a society wedding between a Broadway star and a handsome young man-about-town (on whom Man seems to have his own designs, no matter what he says), with a big producer, two punning comic gangsters, a ditzy chorine, an addled grande dame, an aviatrix ("what we now call a lesbian," Man notes) and others all conspiring to gum up the works.
It's a loving parody of many a period show, like "Dames at Sea," say, or "Little Mary Sunshine." By itself, it may not be as good as either of those, but Man in Chair makes it special, proving a likable, knowing guide. At the end, when the imaginary cast embraces him in his solitary depression, we embrace him, too.
The cast of 17 performs some juicy comic production numbers along the way, the better to fill out the Benedum's expanse. "Show Off" is a brilliant display of false modesty for the bride and "As We Stumble Along" a triumphant, much-encored faux anthem for the title character, who is actually more interesting for the forgotten star who is supposed to play her.
The show whizzes by in a continuous 90 minutes, allowing Man a good comic bit about taking an intermission when we don't and including a huge production number that slips in from another show entirely. The score by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and book by Robert Martin and Don McKellar are all clever, as you'd expect from their roots in sketch comedy.
Georgia Engel, a CLO favorite, reprises her Broadway role as the addled rich hostess, and Robert Dorfman does a very good Edward Everett Horton as her butler. Andrea Chamberlain doesn't have the wattage of Sutton Foster, but she brings gymnastic determination to the bride's antics. The groom, named Robert Martin in honor of the writer who originally played Man in Chair, is the tap-skillful Mark Ledbetter.
The droll Nancy Opel is a fine Chaperone, James Moye is properly accent-ludicrous as the Latin lover, and who knew Mike Ditka did musicals? Actually, it's Cliff Bemis who plays the producer.
But all hail Jonathan Crombie, whose Man, melancholy included, is indeed the man of the hour (and a half).
Pittsburgh Tribune
February 28, 2008
By Alice T. Carter
For every fan of the old-fashioned musical who has ever lamented that they just don't make them like that anymore, Bob Martin, Don McKellar, Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison have done the impossible.
The creators of "The Drowsy Chaperone" have devised a brand-new, old-fashioned show that lovingly celebrates everything you love about stage musicals from the 1920s and those 1930s movie musicals with Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire.
The musical at the heart of the show pays loving homage to the strengths and flaws of those fluffy, delightfully silly shows without patronizing or ridicule.
It's the answer to the theatergoer's pre-curtain prayer: "Please let it be a good show and let it be short -- and keep the actors out of the aisles."
It begins with a nerdy, effete, but never identified Man in Chair -- lovingly and lovably played by Jonathan Crombie -- who lives a gray, angsty life in a gray Manhattan apartment with his collection of original cast recordings. As he puts his favorite -- the album of 1928's "The Drowsy Chaperone" -- onto his turntable, the show comes to life and fills his apartment as he becomes our guide and narrator for the show.
David Gallo's inventive set design cleverly utilizes elements of the apartment that turns into a Long Island mansion while never abandoning its original purpose. Gregg Barnes provides cheery and colorful costumes that are pretty, period-perfect and full of musical theater flamboyance.
The plot is familiar -- a glamorous, talented showgirl is about to marry a wealthy and handsome young man. Her producer is determined to stop the wedding and hires a Latin lover to seduce the bride-to-be.
Complications arise.
But they're all resolved in 100 intermissionless minutes and just in time for the big splashy finale.
Lambert and Morrison provide sunny, properly silly lyrics set to actually hummable tunes.
As Janet Van De Graff, Andrea Chamberlain belts out her bride-to-be showgirl character's "Show Off" showstopper. Her fiance, Robert Martin, played by Mark Ledbetter, shows off his tap prowess in "Cold Feet." Nancy Opel plays the Drowsy Chaperone and has fun with the anthem "As We Stumble Along."
Georgia Engel, known for her ditzy characters on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Everybody Loves Raymond," reprises her role as the featherbrained Mrs. Tottendale, which she created for the show's Broadway production. Joining with Robert Dorfman as her butler Underling, they have great fun with "Love is Always Lovely in the End."
Cincinnati Enquirer
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
By Jackie Demaline
“The Drowsy Chaperone” starts on a dark stage. A disembodied voice, who will soon be identified as our narrator/guide/commentator Man in Chair (Jonathan Crombie) explains how he always prays at the beginning of a musical – “Please let it be a good show and let it be short – and keep the actors out of the aisles…”
All our lonely hero wants is “a story and a few good songs – I just want to be entertained. Amen.”
Of course he had us at “let it be short.”
“The Drowsy Chaperone,” on national tour at the Aronoff, is a sly post-post-post-post-modern musical that winks as it asks the question “Why can’t they write ‘em like they used to?”
Our host offers to play an obscure 1928 original cast album and when the needle hits the record (yes, a needle; yes, a record), he is transported and takes us along for the ride. Rather the show is transported, coming to life in all its silliness to Mr. Chair’s sad, one-room apartment.
Saying the show-within-the-show is light as air would be lending it gravity. The post-post-post-post-modern answer to that question posed above is that one of the reasons they don’t write ‘em like they used to is that some of them were awful – like the show-within-the-show that is “The Drowsy Chaperone.” (If only there were a few good songs.)
But our love affair is with Man in Chair, charmingly brought to life by Crombie, whose obsessive glee is irresistible as he starts and stops the musical’s action to fill us in on the show’s back story, and to provide wry commentary on the state of musical theater today.
While the show Man in Chair is in love with is wretched, the production on stage at the Aronoff is terrific.
“Chaperone” is knowingly filled with every device known to 1920s musicals (the show’s creators must be complete musical fanatics) and sets and costumes just get more and more eye-poppingly, and hilariously, over-the-top.
Here’s what happens: A musical star (Andrea Chamberlain) decides to quit show biz to get married. For an unknown reason, the ceremony is being held at the fabulous estate of gaga Mrs. Tottendale (Georgia Engel) who dresses like an operetta milkmaid.
Two comical gangsters (Peter Riopelle and Paul Riopelle)are imported from “Anything Goes,” here disguised as pastry chefs (the better for pastry verbal gags, don’t ask) to threaten the producer (Cliff Bemis) that the show must go on, so break up the wedding already, or have your legs broken.
Nancy Opel is the title character, sort of a Reno Sweeney who dresses like Gloria Swanson and isn’t so much drowsy as plastered.
Chamberlain gets a beach number with impressive quick costume and key changes; she also leads a “Lady in the Dark” psycho moment, and when it looks like “The Drowsy Chaperone” can’t get bigger or wackier – well, it’s 60 years too early to drop a helicopter on stage, so drop that biplane out of the sky for a salute to Fred and Ginger!
The entire cast is grand but I’ll be a meanie and say “The Drowsy Chaperone” isn’t for everyone. Man in Chair aside, your tolerance level for endless inane songs will have a lot to do with your degree of enjoyment, no matter how engaging the exemplary cast and smart-as-can-be design work and execution.
It’s worth mentioning that another musical about musicals is playing concurrently, with “Musical of Musicals (The Musical!)” at Playhouse in the Park. In both cases, the more you know, the more you’re likely to enjoy both shows.
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Wednesday, January 2, 2007
Miami Herald
By Christine Dolen
The voice coming at us in the darkened theater is empathetic, inviting, wise.
An unseen man confides that he doesn't much like shows these days. His prayer is that the show will be good, short, and won't feature actors smashing through the fourth wall to wander into the audience.
Just give him a good story, a few good songs. Just let him beentertained. Is that too much to ask?
Not if it's The Drowsy Chaperone, which smashingly combines every little ingredient of its narrator's recipe for a delightful musical throwback.
A CELEBRATION
Though the Tony Award-winning show, with music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, and a script by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, has just ended its long Broadway run, the touring version has just landed at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. A piece that celebrates and deconstructs the conventions of Jazz Age musicals,The Drowsy Chaperone also honors those who adore the genre through its irresistible narrator, a fellow known only as Man in Chair.
It is his voice -- actually, the voice of actor Jonathan Crombie -- that wafts at us in the dark, inviting us into a lonely man's fantasy world. When the lights finally do come up, we see a middle-aged man in an oversized cardigan and gray studio apartment.
Then he begins to play the cast album of a fictional 1928 musical that also happens to be calledThe Drowsy Chaperone, and his drab little flat is filled with the madcap energy and colorful characters of a silly, absolutely terrific musical.
DISHING OUT
The narrator explains each character, then dishes a bit about the '20s actors he has summoned via his imagination. He swoons a little over the show's groom-to-be, Robert Martin (Mark Ledbetter), though later he'll challenge our assumptions about theater-besotted loners who have problems with their mothers.
Bride-to-be Janet Van De Graaff (Andrea Chamberlain) is a leading lady who swears, in a very showy number calledShow Off, that she's ready to ditch her career for a long run as a wife. To make sure the two don't see each other before the nuptials, the title ''drowsy'' chaperone (an exquisitely funny Nancy Opel) is to keep an eye on Janet, though the woman isfar more talented at guzzling booze, Prohibition be damned.
The stage quickly fills with other stock characters: Mrs. Tottendale (Georgia Engel, the whispery-voiced comedienne), a rich woman who discovers that the butler (Robert Dorfman) did it when it comes to love; Adolpho (James Moye), the beyond-clichéd Latin lover; Feldzieg (Cliff Bemis, who looks eerily like ex-football coach Mike Ditka), a producer determined not to lose his leading lady; Kitty (Marla Mindelle), the producer's dumb-blonde gal pal; a couple of ''gangster'' vaudevillians (Paul Riopelle and Mason Roberts); a big-voiced aviatrix (Fran Jaye), who shows up just in time for the big quadruple wedding finale.
Which is as it should be. The earliest version of The Drowsy Chaperone was created as a wedding present for thereal Robert Martin (he went on to coauthor the script and originate the Man in Chair character) and his bride, who is really named Janet Van De Graaff.
Some 10 years and five Tony Awards later, it's the gift that keeps on giving.
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Saturday, January 5, 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
By Mary Damiano
Special Correspondent
As sparkly as a sequined gown, as bubbly as champagne,The Drowsy Chaperone is a valentine to a bygone era of musical theater — though it never misses an opportunity to poke fun at wacky theatrical conventions.
The opening is structured likeA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; the audience meets the entire company right at the beginning and knows from the get-go that there will be a happy ending.The Drowsy Chaperone is a show within a show, in which an avid theater fan, known only as Man in Chair (Jonathan Crombie) sits in his squalid, one-room apartment and plays the record album (yes, an actual vinyl LP) from a forgotten 1928 musical, "The Drowsy Chaperone."
As the musical comes to life in his apartment, he interjects trivia about the stars who played the parts, comments on the plot and songs, and reveals much about himself by discussing what the musical means to him.
The faux show that has besotted the Man in Chair has one of those screwball plots that require a huge suspension of disbelief. There's a ditzy society matron, her loyal butler, a pair of gangsters posing as pastry chefs, a dizzy chorus girl, an insecure producer, a sleazy Latin lover, a tipsy chaperone, an aviatrix, a beautiful bride and a dashing groom. They all converge on a country estate on the wedding day of said bride and groom, and as you can imagine, complications ensue.
The Drowsy Chaperone closed on Broadway just a few days ago, after nearly 700 performances and several Tony awards. This touring company, which hit the road in September, is polished and exuberant, and up to the broad comedy the show requires.
As Man in Chair, Crombie delivers a poignant and funny performance, though he seems miscast.
Crombie is a bit young to have been so beaten up by life that he's become a recluse in his tiny flat, with his collection of Broadway cast albums as his only solace.
Georgia Engel reprises her role as Mrs. Tottendale, the society matron she created on Broadway. Best known for her TV roles as Georgette onThe Mary Tyler Moore Show and as Pat McDougal onEverybody Loves Raymond, Engel plays her signature sweet but clueless character, and she's still a delight to watch, especially during a very funny spit-take scene.
There are lots of show-stopping moments, including Andrea Chamberlain's bigShow Off number, Robert Vida and Mark Ledbetter's exuberant tap dancing onCold Feets, and the anthemicAs We Stumble Along.
The glitzy costumes, whimsical set design and inventive staging meld with the cast's performances to makeThe Drowsy Chaperone a breezy ride.
Mary Damiano can reached at Starrwriter2000@aol.com.
On stage
The Drowsy Chaperone
Musical, through Jan.13 at Broward Center, 201 SW Fifth Ave.; Fort Lauderdale. Shows 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday (Jan. 6), 2 p.m. Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday. Tickets $23-$67. Call 954-462-0222 or visit browardcenter.org.
Copyright © 2008, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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Sarasota Herald Tribune
Thursday, January 17, 2008
By JAY HANDELMAN
"The Drowsy Chaperone" may have been considered a sleeper hit on Broadway, but there's nothing sleepy about this lively and spirited tribute to musicals of the 1920s with a modern spin.
Those who may feel reluctant to see the kind of frivolous, dance-filled shows that were popular nearly a century ago are quickly put at ease by a voice that pierces through the darkened theater.
"I hate theater," says a character identified as Man in Chair. "It's so disappointing." That's why he always prays: "Let it be good and let it be short" and "keep the actors out of the audience."
Man in Chair is 40-something, living in a cluttered apartment and regretting his life. He is blue and he cheers himself up by playing the cast album of one of his favorite old shows, "The Drowsy Chaperone," which comes to life in his living room and kitchen.
Counters and furniture disappear to make room for costumed stars who enact a typically silly story about complications that nearly derail the wedding between a rising stage star and a rich young man.
It would all seem inconsequential without the running narration and commentary of Man in Chair, a sad-eyed but charming Jonathan Crombie, who gives a bit of history about the actors who appeared in this fictional show and their careers and performing styles.
It all gives a loopy lift to a show with a pleasantly serviceable score by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and a laugh-filled book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar.
Andrea Chamberlain is an energetic charmer as actress Janet Van De Graaff, who may lament that she does not want to "Show Off" any more on stage, but clearly lives for the spotlight.
Mark Ledbetter is her well-groomed fiancé, a hot-stepping tapper who actually gets smoke rising from the floor when he pairs up with Richard Vida, as his best man, George.
Nancy Opel, a stalwart of numerous Broadway and touring shows, is riotously funny as the title character, who swills gin and whatever else she can get into a glass, while trying to keep Janet from seeing Robert before the wedding. She sings "As We Stumble Along" as an anthem to prop up a dispirited Janet, though it more perfectly suits her drunken state.
TV star Georgia Engel is adorable and cute as the daffy wedding hostess Mrs. Tottendale, who rarely knows what is going on, but faces every moment with unerring joy.
Each of the characters -- including gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, a producer frantic to stop the wedding to keep Janet in his show and a lothario looking for love -- have their moments, described with alternately cutting and funny details by Man in Chair.
The show frequently explodes into fast-paced dances, choreographed by inventive director Casey Nicholaw. Sometimes they get stuck in repetitive motion when the record skips. It is all staged the way musical fans re-imagine what they saw on stage when they listen to a favorite musical recording.
The show has a witty and infectious spirit that will sweep you away for 90 minutes or so. And it is easy to imagine that we will be enjoying this one for years to come at any number of local playhouses.
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
Tampa Tribune
By Kathy Greenberg
The Tony award-winning production is on stage through Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
The show opens with Man in Chair (brilliantly played by Jonathan Crombie), a lonely figure with a penchant for old musicals. This schlumpy sad sack is pathetically funny as he whines about contemporary musicals and the world in general. He covets his vintage record collection and, when feeling blue (which is most of the time), plays an LP. One of his favorites is a recording of the 1928 musical "The Drowsy Chaperone."
Man in Chair begs the audience to indulge him and drops the needle. At first, the overture tentatively trickles into his grey but tidy flat, almost immediately lifting his mood. But then his imagination overwhelms reality, the music swells and the characters from "The Drowsy Chaperone" come to life on stage.
The cast of overarching stereotypes sweeps into the apartment, transforming the dreary room into a sunshiny world — in spite of Prohibition. Robert Martin (Mark Ledbetter) has asked glamorous actress Janet Van De Graaff (Andrea Chamberlain) to marry him. Since it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, the Drowsy Chaperone (Nancy Opel) is on hand to keep Van De Graaff out of Martin's sight. In this case, drowsy means drunk, and Opel plays the boozy flirt to the hilt. Meanwhile, dotty Mrs. Tottendale (the ever-lovable Georgia Engel), with the help of Underling (Robert Dorfman) and best man George (Richard Vida), flits about like an oversize Shirley Temple to organize the wedding.
Van De Graaff has decided to give up stardom for marriage, much to the chagrin of her agent Feldzieg (Cliff Bemis) and the delight of aspiring but untalented actress Kitty (Marla Mindelle), who wants to be the new star of his show. With the synchronized finesse of old vaudevillians, brothers Paul Riopelle and Peter Riopelle play Gangsters #1 and #2 who threaten to close Feldzieg's show if he loses Van De Graaff.
Desperate, the agent concocts a plot to sabotage the wedding. He sends Aldolpho (James Moye is a hoot as the blatant Italian lothario) to seduce the bride, but he mistakes the Drowsy Chaperone for his real target and therefore foils Feldzieg's dastardly plan.
Man in Chair interrupts the shenanigans on occasion to tell back stories about the actors and comment on the show. He admits that some of the numbers are pretty lame, even suggesting the audience ignore the hilariously bad lyrics to "Bride's Lament" and fast-forwarding through "Love is Always Lovely in the End," which includes a series of spit takes between Mrs. Tottendale and Underling. His interjections become more integral to the show, eventually landing him "on stage" with the imagined ensemble and escaping to the skies with Trix the aviatrix (Fran Jaye, whose six-octave voice blows the mind).
Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison, Bob Martin and Don McKellar concocted a genius pastiche that both spoofs and celebrates a long-gone brand of entertainment. Audiences will surely leave the theater longing for a Gibson and wondering why life can't be more like a musical.
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/17/Theater/_Drowsy_Chaperone__re.shtml
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
St. Petersburg Times
By John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic
The spirited musical is guaranteed to keep its audiences awake.
The Drowsy Chaperone
The musical runs through Sunday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa. $32.50-$72.50 plus service charges. (813) 229-7827; toll-free 1-800-955-1045; www.tbpac.org.
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TAMPA - If the measure of a successful musical is having an infectious melody stuck in your mind afterward, thenThe Drowsy Chaperone is a smash.Fancy Dress,Accident Waiting to Happen, Love Is Always Lovely in the End - all of these songs are the musical equivalents of chewing gum on a shoe.
But there's a lot more toThe Drowsy Chaperone, which opened Tuesday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, than just catchy tunes. This is a show, after all, whose first words create an instant bond with chronic theatergoers.
"I hate theater," says a voice in the dark. "Please let it be a good show."
The lights come up on a dingy apartment where a man in corduroys and a cardigan settles into an easy chair and puts on his favorite Broadway album, Gable and Stein'sThe Drowsy Chaperone from 1928.
For the next 100 minutes there is no intermission, the Man in Chair, played by Jonathan Crombie, leads the audience through the made-up musical. Periodically, his apartment is transformed into an estate where a wedding party is under way. All the characters called for in such a stock scenario are here, including the starlet bride and her betrothed, scion to an oil fortune; a cigar-chomping producer and his ditsy girlfriend; a tap-dancing best man; a pair of gangsters disguised as pastry chefs; and a Latin Lothario. There's even an aviatrix named Trix, who lands her biplane on the estate while flying down to Rio.
Then there's the title character, a cynical quipster with a champagne flute in hand at all times ("drowsy" is a Prohibition-era euphemism for "drunk"), whose task is to uphold the wedding-day superstition of keeping the bride from coming in contact with the groom before the ceremony. As the Man in Chair drolly notes, that's the extent of the plot, mainly an excuse to stage extravagant song and dance numbers.
In some ways,The Drowsy Chaperone - billed as "a musical within a comedy" - provides the best of both worlds. For diehard musical fans, it is artfully conceived (with music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar) froth that replicates the offhand brilliance of Jazz Age shows by the Gershwins. There's also a hilarious spoof ofThe King and I when Man in Chair puts on the wrong record.
And for people who hate musicals, there is the solo show of Man in Chair, who wittily expounds on everything from global warming ("November is the new August") to the similarities between pornography and musical theater.
There is a nostalgia that may be lost on anyone who grew up in the digital age. A prominent theme is the Man in Chair's affection for LP vinyl records. "Hear that static?" he says. "I love that sound . . . the sound of a time machine."
Crombie strikes a deft balance between cranky eccentric and musical theater Everyman. He is a deceptively smooth singer and hoofer himself, as when he joins in with the show's glamorous ingenue, Janet Van De Graaff (Andrea Chamberlain), inBride's Lament, a preposterously over the top number that includes a mad scene.
Chamberlain is charming in numbers likeShow Off, in which Janet ranges from plate spinning to lariat twirling to cartwheeling while making numerous costume changes. Nancy Opel brings superb comic timing to the title role. Asked by Janet if she has ever been married, the chaperone replies, "No, I drink for pleasure, not out of necessity." Her booming anthem,As We Stumble Along, owes something of a debt to Ethel Merman.
Casey Nicholaw directed and choreographedThe Drowsy Chaperone in a smart, peppy style that shows off the talented company of Broadway pros. Cliff Bemis, as the producer Feldzieg, lends a big man's gracefulness to the dance number Toledo Surprise, which also features the gangster-pastry chefs, played by Paul and Peter Riopelle.
Vaudeville tradition informs the performances of Georgia Engel, playing the society matriarch Mrs. Tottendale, and Robert Dorfman's Underling (the butler). They even manage to work in a ukulele. James Moye chews up the scenery and spits it out as the Latin lover Aldolpho. Robert Billig conducts the orchestra in the bubbly score.
But for all the show's musical delights, what most sticks in the mind after the curtain falls is the memory of the Man in Chair, a sweetly touching figure as he escapes into his own little world ofThe Drowsy Chaperone.
John Fleming can be reached at fleming@sptimes.com or (727)893-8716
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Naples Daily News
By CHRIS SILK
I feel dreadfully sorry for the couple who had the tickets for the empty seats next to me for Tuesday night’s performance of “The Drowsy Chaperone” at the Naples Philharmonic.
Folks, you missed your shot at one of most innovative and entertaining shows to roll into town since local politics was invented.
I don’t know that I have the words to describe it. If you missed it, I pity you. If you’ve got tickets, don’t skip it. If you don’t have tickets, beg, borrow, steal or cajole a set. You won’t be sorry.
The audience that was there whispered with cries of delight as they caught the small jokes that sometimes get lost in the shuffle of a big musical. Every ovation and every laugh was solidly earned Tuesday night.
Don’t let the somnolent title fool you. “Drowsy” doesn’t mean sleepy and it doesn’t mean dull. Far from it. “The Drowsy Chaperone” — written by Canadians Bob Martin and Don McKellar — is a tale filled with mobsters and marriages, movie moguls and monkeys, sweethearts and songs, plus lashings of Latin lotharios, spit-takes, costume changes and tumblers of vodka. Sadly, they’re out of olives.
The musical opens with a voice speaking out to a darkened house, lamenting the state of theater. When the lights go up, the crowd sees the narrator, a sad-sack type, sitting alone in a dreary studio apartment, who introduces his favorite musical, a 1928 send-up called “The Drowsy Chaperone.” As a record plays, the characters from the record come alive and the wan apartment is transformed into a glittering Broadway stage.
Far from being just an introduction, the innovative dramatic framing extends throughout the play. The action freezes at times so the narrator, known only as the Man in the Chair, can offer his thoughts on the show or deliver bits of trivia.
Chuck Rea plays the lonely schlub perfectly, never letting character traits slip into mannerism or joke become shtick. He brings such empathy to the character that I was surprised to see that he isn’t the regular for the role.
The plot of the self-described “musical-within-a-comedy” is simple. A movie star wants to marry and leave show business; a producer wants to stop the wedding. The characters run the gamut from mobsters to Italian lovers to English butlers to ditzy showgirls to pilots and planes to the titular drowsy chaperone. (The 1928 definition of drowsy was “tipsy.”) It might sound complicated, but it really isn’t. The gags and quips and song and dance fly so fast you won’t know where to look. I wish I had another crack at the show to catch everything I missed the first time around.
The musical numbers of “Drowsy Chaperone” are as varied as the characters. The show has six tour-de-force dance extravaganzas, some of which have the whole company making jazz hands that would do Bob Fosse proud. Plus, if you’ve never seen a character enter stage rear through a refrigerator, this is your chance.
The show hop-scotches merrily from vaudeville to toe-tapping Burns and Allen numbers to big-voiced diva show-stoppers. There’s an intentionally over-acted bedroom farce and a mistaken identity scramble on roller skates. Judged on its merits as a musical, “The Drowsy Chaperone” would probably be awful. But as spoof its fantastic.
The performances were excellent all around. But if I had to pick a favorite, I’d give the win to Andrea Chamberlain for her “Show Off” number, if only for the number of props, costume changes and acrobatics she hit while never missing a mark.
I’m in love, too, with Nancy Jaye. Although she only dropped in for one number, Jaye’s pilot Trix nearly blasted the roof off the Philharmonic when she opened up all six octaves and launched into “I Do, I Do in the Sky.” I wish every traveling production could attract talent like that.
Despite the fact that the show lurches from conflict to resolution like it has a wedding (or four) to get to, I think it does have something to tell us about the human condition.
The Man in the Chair’s observations on the action and his comments to the audiences are the wounded soul of the play. Through these asides, the audience comes to see the truth of a lonely man, broken in love, broken in life, who escapes into a world of make-believe with his records.
Underneath the gaudy sets, the stage makeup, the glamor, the clanging cymbals and the show tunes, the vodka and the vaudeville, “The Drowsy Chaperone” — the character and the play — manages to deliver a simple message, one that musicals have been delivering since the first house lights went up on Broadway. There’s life, there’s hope as we stumble along.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Wendell Brock
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B
“The Drowsy Chaperone” is as high in giddy empty calories as a plate of chocolate eclairs washed down with a magnum of champagne — but it will never make you snooze.
The Fringe of Toronto hit that conquered Broadway and earned five 2006 Tony Awards arrived Tuesday night at the Fox Theatre, and if the zany concoction doesn’t taste quite as quite as fresh as it did when it first popped out of the oven, it’s still chock full of nuts, surprises and booze-soaked bonmots.
As multilayered as a wedding cake, the smartly written “Drowsy Chaperone” takes its name from a fictional 1928 Broadway frolic that a modern-day musical-theater geek lovingly narrates while the vintage cast album spins on a turntable beside his armchair.
In director Casey Nicholaw’s “musical within a comedy,” Man in Chair pines for the glory days of pure vaudeville escapism, when the likes of Cole Porter and the Gershwins penned sweet comic Valentines meant to entertain and delight. Nowadays, the purist says, it’s “Please, Elton John, must we continue this charade.”
Too bad that Jonathan Crombie doesn’t match the sardonic drollery that made Bob Martin’s original Man in Chair such a Broadway sensation. (As the story goes, Toronto songwriters Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison created the faux musical as a wedding party joke for Martin and his wife, after which Martin and co-book writer Don McKellar came on board to help shape the piece into its present form.)
Crombie’s less pointed attack is slow to gel, but he does eventually find his way. By the end of the night, as Man in Chair contemplates the loneliness that is sure to wash over him as his beloved musical ends, he’s as heartbreaking as he is glib.
As the dotty Mrs. Tottendale, who is hosting a wedding she can’t remember, Georgia Engel, who played Georgette on TV’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has an effervescence that is undimmed by time. Engel gets to engage in some pretty sloppy spit gags — at the expense of Mrs. Tottendale’s manservant Underling (Robert Dorfman).
Meanwhile, the nupitals of sparkling show-biz personalities Janet Van De Graaff (Andrea Chamberlain) and Robert Martin (Mark Ledbetter) are nearly sabotaged by an array of “mixups and mayhem.” There are gangsters disguised as bakers, a show-biz impresario with a hopelessly ditzy girlfriend, a lesbian aviatrix and an accidental romance between Latin lothario Adolpho (James Moye) and Janet’s cocktail-swigging Chaperone (Nancy Opel).
Moye’s performance recalls Sasha Baron Cohen’s turn as the flamboyant faux-Italian barber in the film “Sweeney Todd.” He’s good, but not nearly as good as Danny Burstein on Broadway. Whaaat? Opel, on the other hand, is such a crinkly-mouthed caricature of a drunk that she nearly drowns the Chaperone’s charm.
One of Man in Chair’s running jokes is his crush on peacock-crooner Robert Martin. Folks of a different persuasion might take a shine to Janet, who Chamberlain imbues with terrific vivaciousness and spunk. In a production studded with exaggerated, scenery-chewing performances, Chamblerlain brings a degree of humanness that’s warm and welcome.
As “The Drowsy Chaperone” dances on, Man in Chair stops the action to prattle on about the stars’ lives. The record gets stuck. He inadvertently plays a tune from a different show. The power goes out. Yet he somehow takes a trip to heaven without ever leaving his living room. This is the tranformative nature of theater — and a good, old-fashioned way to have fun.
THE 411: 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday. 2 p.m. Saturday. 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. $21-$57. Broadway Across America—Atlanta, Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-817-8700, ticketmaster.com
BOTTOM LINE: A fizzy, old-fashioned highball of fun.
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Orlando Sentinel review
February 8, 2008
By Elizabeth Maupin
In the real world, nothing ever works out, and the only people who ever burst into song are hopelessly deranged.
That’s according to the central character inThe Drowsy Chaperone, a beaten-down guy known only as Man in Chair, whose view of the real world seems to have gone sour some years back.
But things are different in the world of the Broadway musical, asThe Drowsy Chaperone so pixillatedly tells you, in a jubilant touring production here only through Sunday night. Nothing has to make sense in a Broadway musical as long as the feet keep tapping and the songs keep pouring out. And if you’re lucky, a Broadway musical will pick you up and transport you to a far better place.
That such transport actually happens inThe Drowsy Chaperone is only one reason why this show is such a deliriously good time. During a day (or a decade) when you’re feeling a little like Man in Chair, a bit of delirium may be just the tonic you need.
The good news is thatDrowsy Chaperone’s touring production is almost every bit as glossy as its cousin the Broadway version, which opened in spring 2006, ran for more than a year and a half and won five Tony awards (including best score and best book of a musical). This Drowsy may not have the star power that long-legged Tony-winner Sutton Foster brought to Broadway. But in almost every other way, it can knock your socks off — and it’s apt to make you giggle uncontrollably all the while.
Few shows have had as unlikely a trip as this one, which began in 1999 when Canadian theater folk Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison and Don McKellar wrote a spoof of 1920s musicals as a sort of wedding present for their friends Bob Martin and Janet Van De Graaff. With Martin joining in, the team rewrote the show for the Toronto Fringe, and the expanded musical made its way to a little nonprofit theater, then to Toronto’s 1,000-seat Winter Garden, to Los Angeles and eventually to Broadway. (One of the above-the-title producers is part-time Orlandoan Barbara Freitag.)
The concept is this: Man in Chair is a little blue, so he puts on the cast album of a favorite old show, the (fictitious) 1928 Broadway hitThe Drowsy Chaperone. It’s a typically frothy confection of the time about the on-again, off-again wedding plans of a couple named Robert Martin and Janet Van De Graaff — he an oil heir, she a star on Broadway. Man in Chair imagines the glamorous proceedings unfolding before his eyes — and, as they get ever more giddy, he finds himself joining in.
Now, the first flight of fancy in this show is that Man in Chair’s fantasy — the posh trappings of an elegant country house — is so far from the reality of his drab-looking studio flat. But the true silliness comes in the construction of the musical-within-a-musical, with its grandiloquent acting and its age-old vaudeville shtick. “This scene couldn’t be more ridiculous,” Man in Chair confides as the blindfolded groom careers around on roller skates. Even better are the snafus that besiege Man in Chair while he’s listening — the phone calls, the knock at the door, the time the record skips.
For the tour, director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw has assembled a seasoned cast, one that’s game for anything. Even better, the actors come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny to towering, so it’s even funnier to see them so light on their feet. You’ll recognize Georgia Engel (Georgette on the classicMary Tyler Moore Show) as the dizzy hostess Mrs. Tottendale, and musical-theater fans may also know Nancy Opel (Penelope Pennywise inUrinetown) in the tipsy title role.
But look, too, for Mark Ledbetter’s dippy Robert, Cliff Bemis’s tough-guy Feldzieg and Richard Vida’s debonair George; for Andrea Chamberlain’s tireless Janet and especially for James Moye as the lanky, ridiculous Aldolpho, a so-called Latin Lothario whose accent is always a little iffy.
And revel in the performance of Jonathan Crombie as Man in Chair, the warm, sad-eyed sad sack who finds himself frolicking through the show-within-a-show as if he had top billling. Crombie is a joy, from his offhand comments to the audience to his final euphoric rise. If this isn’t a testament to the powers of musical theater, I don’t know what is.
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Hartford Courant review
February 21, 2008
by DONNA LARCEN
When the lights go down at a Broadway musical don't you just hope to be transported to a different world? That the show will be short with no intermission? That you'll be entertained?
These are the rules for the evening put down by Man in Chair, the narrator of "The Drowsy Chaperone," the 2006 Tony-winning (5 of 13 nominations) musical that opened at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts Tuesday.
And this is exactly what you get in this confection of a play within a play that's a pastiche of musicals set in the 1920s with visual reminders of plays through modern times.
It's a clever device. Man in Chair, feeling blue, sits in his shabby apartment playing a vinyl cast album of "The Drowsy Chaperone" given to him by his mother. He's never seen the 1928 play, but he imagines it. And as he describes it, the characters come to life and we see it too. The plot is about love, gangsters, a Broadway producer, vaudeville, alcoholism, magic, songs and dance and an aviatrix who pulls it together with a terrific stage effect.
Man in Chair, played a little fey in his cozy brown sweater and corduroys by Jonathan Crombie, is the perfect guide. His confessions are meant to represent the hopes and dreams of avid theater fans and he can't resist getting more involved as the play unfolds, singing duets and finally joining the cast.
He also controls the tempo, lifting the record needle to stop the action while he fetches tea or a drink. His real life keeps intruding (phone call, power outage, escorting his super to fix the circuit breaker). He'd like to live in this theatrical fantasy world, a brighter shinier place than his tiny flat.
The plot is this: Janet is a star in producer Feldzieg's revue who wants to marry Robert Martin, a man she's just met on a cruise on the Île de France. The producer (Cliff Bemis who bears a resemblance to gruff football great Mike Ditka) is threatened by a gangster via his twin thugs disguised as catering bakers (Peter and Paul Riopelle). The gangster wants Janet to stay on stage to protect his investment. Nancy Opel as Janet's drowsy chaperone (a talented boozer) is set to protect Janet on her wedding day at the estate of Mrs. Tottendale ( Georgia Engel, reprising her Broadway role) who is served by Robert Dorfman's Underling. The aspiring groom Robert Martin (Mark Ledbetter) is a tall handsome singer-tap dancer and blindfolded roller skater who falls for the old mistaken identity ploy in the garden when Janet pretends to be a French girl to test his fidelity. Aldopho (James Moye), a tall handsome foreigner (think Rudolph Valentino), is dispatched by Feldzieg to seduce Janet before the wedding and ends up wooing the woozy chaperone instead.
This play has more characters and love matches than a Shakespearean comedy ("Kiss Me Kate" and "Much Ado About Nothing" come to mind).
It all works out in the end and there are several laugh-out-loud moments. The plot drags with the two spit-take scenes between Tottendale and Underling, but Man in Chair explains that in the original the set had to be changed and they need a scene filler. Even so, it's tedious.
But Opel's scene-chewing, upstaging, tipsy chaperone is a delight. Chamberlain's limber and full- voiced Janet delivers, especially in the lyrically challenged "Bride's Lament," where she compares her lover to a monkey. Ledbetter's Martin brings the right mix of golly gee energy to his tap dancing bridegroom. And Trix the aviatrix lands a plane on stage (think helicopter from "Miss Saigon").
And you know what? The play is brief (under two hours), there's no intermission and we are transported to another world. Mission accomplished.
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE runs through Sunday at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. Directed by Casey Nicholaw, music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar. Conducted by Robert Billig. Tickets are $22 to $72. Information: 860-987-5900 and www.bushnell.org.
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