The Drowsy Chaperone

The Drowsy Chaperone

When wealthy widow Mrs. Tottendale hosts the wedding of the year, she gets a lot more than a write-up in the society pages: Janet Van de Graaff, glittering starlet of Feldzieg’s Follies, is leaving the stage for love, a turn of events which horrifies the angry and anxious Mr. Feldzieg, whose chief investor has sent two gangsters disguised as pastry chefs to make sure he stops the wedding. Hiring Aldolpho, a Latin lover more vain than virile, to seduce the bride, is unsuccessful, as Janet’s chaperone, a drunken diva, gets herself mistaken for the bride and seduced in Janet’s place. It is left to the eager best man, George, to quite by accident break up the happy pair, when he sends groom Robert Martin out to the garden, blindfolded, and in roller skates. Such are the antics of The Drowsy Chaperone, a fictitious 1928 musical comedy. This magical piece of meta-theatre and playful, heartfelt parody of the 1920s musical comedy features a chirpy jazz age score by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, and a lively, clever book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, both of which were Tony winners in 2006. The score boasts such tunes as the scenery-chomping “Show Off”, the sizzling and silly “I Am Aldolpho”, the double-entendre laden “Toledo Surprise”, and “As We Stumble Along”, that rousing anthem to optimistic alcoholism.