![]() In a plot that might have been ripped from any number of Gershwin or Kern works from the period, the population of The Drowsy Chaperone includes a producer, gangsters, a Latin lover, a producer, a dowager, a butler named Underling and an aviatrix named Trix. The title show-within-the-show is a never-was musical about a playboy, his actress fiancée and her jaded chaperone. The musical plays in the same house where Foster played (and won a Tony for) Thoroughly Modern Millie. On April 27, it was nominated for 14 Drama Desk Awards.įoster and the L.A. Songwriters Greg Morrison and Lisa Lambert, and Martin and McKellar, are writers and performers in the theatre and comedy community in Toronto, where Drowsy began as a lark (as a lengthy musical skit at a 1998 stag party celebrating Martin's marriage) and was developed in three separate stagings there before being snatched up by American producer Roy Miller.įollowing a well-received test run at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in late 2005, when Casey Nicholaw directed and choreographed and Tony Award-winner Sutton Foster starred in a major role, The Drowsy Chaperone now makes its Broadway bow. As we travel along, we also learn more about the blue-mood narrator, played by Martin with a quality that suggests an uncomfortable, lonely but forging-ahead Danny Kaye. A tap number, a rousing inspirational anthem (belted by Beth Leavel in the title role), comedy routines, bad jokes, pastiche tunes, hoary ethnic songs, and a deus ex machina (with a propeller) will fill the stage before 100 intermissionless minutes have passed.Īlong the way, Man in Chair can't help sharing juicy tidbits about the (mostly dead, one imagines) people who created the show 80 years ago. Thus, when Man in Chair plays the LP on his stereo, brightly-costumed sections of the musical burst to life in that shadowy apartment (David Gallo is the scenic designer who conjures visual surprises throughout). It's not just about spinning a record, it's about how art can transform your sense of the universe. ![]() And why not? The experience is all about backstage gossip, breezy show tunes and finding refuge from a bad old world in a good old musical.ĭid we mention the entire show is set in Man in Chair's tiny, shabby studio apartment?ĭirected by Casey Nicholaw, the experience is constructed to be more potent and three-dimensional than a "Desert Island Discs" radio show, of course. The producers of the musical comedy at the Marquis Theatre are hoping musical theatre addicts who love surprise - and who love backstage stories - will take a chance on a newcomer. The reason you've never heard of The Drowsy Chaperone, which began Broadway performances April 3, is that it's brand new - not a revival, not based on a play, not inspired by a movie. What Man in Chair leads theatregoers to - when he plays an old LP on his Hi-Fi - is an obscure 1928 Broadway musical, The Drowsy Chaperone, by Gable & Stein, a pair of never-were songwriters whose show was as daffy and throwaway as any now-forgotten score from the golden age of American musicals.īut lonely Man in Chair, like so many other musical theatre mavens, finds treasure in the trash - he knows the plot is silly, but revels in the gems within the score, and delights in the backstage stories of the fictive showfolk who created the musical way back when. Unlike Harry Connick's turn in The Pajama Game this season, Man in Chair does not appear bare-chested in the evening, but audiences might find his work just as memorable, despite the muted earth tones of his homely garb. ![]() Played by Canadian actor Bob Martin, who also co-wrote the show's libretto (with Don McKellar), he wears a natty brown cardigan, baggy corduroys and comfortable shoes. Host, narrator and guide, the main man in the cast of characters goes by the name of Man in Chair. Bob Martin in The Drowsy Chaperone Joan Marcus
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |