I saw The Drowsy Chaperone again last night, and I had a ball. Yeah, I know. I recently blogged about how listening to the Drowsy Chaperone CD gave me second thoughts about the show. But seeing it again reminded me of just how frigging funny the damn thing is. I'd heard it all before, and I was still in stitches.
Robert Martin is priceless as Man in Chair. I adore Sutton Foster in whatever she does, and this show is certainly no exception. Tony-winner Beth Leavel is an overly-mannered joy as the title character. And Danny Burstein lovingly chews the scenery as the pompous Aldolpho.
Actually, Burstein's big number is a great example of how the humor of the show just doesn't translate well to the CD. "I Am Aldolpho" is a lame, lame song, but deliberately so. It's Burstein's spot-on performance, as well as Leavel's, that makes the number a stitch.
Yeah, the show isn't perfect. "Cold Feets" really didn't hold up upon a second viewing. Casey Nicholaw does a terrific job staging "Toledo Surprise" and most of the other numbers, but the tap choreography in "Cold Feets" remains resolutely earthbound.
Also, a minor point, but the premise of the show rests on a false conceit: Man in Chair puts his favorite cast album on his turntable and the show comes to life around him. But cast albums didn't exist in the 1920s. The first full-length cast album was The Cradle Will Rock, which came in the 30s, and the first fully orchestrated one didn't come until 1943, with Oklahoma! And the whole stylized gangsters-in-disguise thing is an obvious reference to Guys and Dolls, which opened in 1950.
Even so, the musical-theater historian in me is willing to pardon these transgressions. The Drowsy Chaperone is an affectionate, infectious valentine to musicals and the people who love them.
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