Drowsy Chaperone Reviews- Page 2

[boxers7]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 9:34pm

Where oh where is the Times review?!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 9:35pm

The Times is usually not up until 10-ish

[boxers7]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 9:36pm

Well then I guess I'll be up 'till 10ish .

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 9:38pm

Occasionally it's earlier, but most times, it pops up between 10 and 11

[jo]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:06pm

Okay, I had only one slot left to see one other show for my Broadway trip -- after reading the first few reviews, I have decided to get tickets for DROWSY CHAPERONE...before the good seats go ...Row K - center, at regular price

I'm seeing it the matinee after seeing HISTORY BOYS the previous night, right after the TONYs.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:08pm

Talkin Broadway is Mixed:

"The look of exultation is unmistakable, and familiar to every musical theatre lover who's ever been transported by one of his or her favorite numbers. It washes across the face of our guide through the new musical The Drowsy Chaperone with all the regularity of the tides, the smile from deep within that suggests a feeling almost like being in love.

Okay, forget almost. It is love for the enigmatically named "Man in Chair," who's currently reigning over the Marquis like King Arthur once did over Camelot. And as played by Bob Martin, he's the exuberant embodiment of every enthusiast whose knowledge of his particular subject is both heaven and hell. That's a feeling to which those attending The Drowsy Chaperone will be able to relate all too well.

For while the show is elevated by Martin's chicly cheeky performance, this is perhaps the hardest musical to love that's ever been written specifically for musical lovers. It's easy to write off drivel like the Off-Broadway abomination The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!, which used musical theatre love as a sordid means to questionable comic ends. But when something courts devotees with as much honest gusto as does The Drowsy Chaperone, attention must be paid. Sadly, except when Martin is speaking - and too often when he is - the more attention you pay, the less readily that attention pays off.
______________________________________________________________

But even if it could, it wouldn't much lift the quality of the show-within-the-show: The dialogue is faux-arch-parodic, not genuinely clueless fun. And the compositions don't recall 20s styles as much as approximate them in modern terms: Only "Accident Waiting to Happen," a molasses-sticky duet for Robert and Janet, is appropriately Tin Pan Alley-smooth, though "Cold Feets" is a fine tap duet for Korbich and Johnson. But would-be showstoppers like Foster's "Show Off," Leavel's non-rousing, non-anthemic rousing anthem "As We Stumble Along", and the bizarre "Bride's Lament" (in which monkeys feature prominently) herald from another tradition entirely.

Both actresses command the stage, even if their style is overblown contemporaneity instead of legitimate '20s star stuff. (And, for a '20s musical comedy, where's the legit soprano ingénue?) Johnson has the right slick smarminess, and Korbich's is so perfect as a go-anywhere hoofer of a best man that he proves himself yet again the ideal second-banana born 60 years too late for stardom. Other performers, including Danny Burstein as a resplendently ridiculous, indiscriminately Mediterranean lover, and Georgia Engel and Edward Hibbert as vaudeville-shtick wedding hosts, simply try too hard.

But David Gallo's apartment set, into which Drowsy's marriage mansion inventively irrupts, is a clever creation, and Gregg Barnes's costumes are exquisite (especially for a one-minute gag centering on a song called "Message From a Nightingale," the evening's surprise highlight). How much they, or Ken Billington and Brian Monahan's lighting, really recall the '20s, I can't say, but with overaudible amplification and no chorus of 75, nothing about the production exactly screams 1920s anyway.

Such things, alas, are too much to hope for, as is The Drowsy Chaperone as a guaranteed savior from the dullish new Broadway musicals this season. (One doubts that the scores of Lestat or The Wedding Singer will inspire many new "Man in Chair"s decades from now, though In My Life has a shot.) As it is, it's the best of a dreary lot.

But Martin's performance is a spirited reminder of the joy that musicals can inspire, and there can be no doubt from it, or his book, of his fondness for musicals and the people who adore them. That makes it all the more troubling that he and his collaborators couldn't put forth the extra effort necessary to get more of the details right."


http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/DrowsyChaperone.html

[LouW95]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:18pm

Drowsy Chaperone is a terrific show for any fan of musical comedy. I have heard some people call it a spoof while others referred to it as a tribute to the musicals of long ago. I just loved it and dont care what you call it. It is pure entertainment with a tuneful, "leave the theatre singing" score and a superb cast. The audience reaction throughout the show was what actors kill for!!!!!

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:21pm

The Times is Mixed to Positive:

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/theater/reviews/02drow.html

Nostalgic 'Drowsy Chaperone' Opens on Broadway

By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: May 2, 2006

The gods of timing, who are just as crucial to success in show business as mere talent is, have smiled brightly upon "The Drowsy Chaperone," the small and ingratiating musical that opened last night at the big and intimidating Marquis Theater. Though this revved-up spoof of a 1920's song-and-dance frolic, as imagined by an obsessive 21st-century show queen, seems poised to become the sleeper of the Broadway season, it is not any kind of a masterpiece.

Sutton Foster, center, plays a woman ready to give up showbiz for love in the new old-fashioned musical "The Drowsy Chaperone."
Without its ingenious narrative framework and two entrancing performances — by Bob Martin as a lonely, musical-loving schlemiel with a hyperactive fantasy life and Sutton Foster as the showgirl heroine of his dreams — "The Drowsy Chaperone" would feel at best like a festive entree at a high-end suburban dinner theater.

But try telling that to the theatergoers who are responding to this hard-working production as if they were withering house plants that, after weeks of neglect, have finally tasted water again. "The Drowsy Chaperone," which has songs by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and a book by Mr. Martin and Don McKellar, arrives at a moment when Broadway audiences have been battered, bruised and bludgeoned to sleep by blunt instruments of shows like "Ring of Fire" and "Lestat."

And now here is a musical that frankly sets itself up as a short (1 hour 40 minutes), happy exercise in escapism, adorned with just enough postmodern footnotes to make you feel all insiderly. It's sort of like being able to eat your cake and diet too.

Surely few productions have ever pulled an audience so immediately and unconditionally on their sides. The first few minutes of "The Drowsy Chaperone," which began professional life at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1999, take place in complete darkness, while an anxious but companionable voice drifts from the stage like a life line.

"I hate theater," the voice says. "Well, it's so disappointing, isn't it?" This voice, which belongs to a character called Man in Chair (rendered with clinical exactitude by Mr. Martin), offers up the prayer he says he always mutters before a show, requesting that it be short, free of actors who roam the audience and blessed with "a story and a few good songs that will take me away."

Imagine, he continues, a time when audiences eagerly awaited the latest from Cole Porter and the Gershwins. "Now," the Man says, "it's, 'Please, Elton John, must we continue this charade?' "

Luckily for us, this Man — who is subsequently revealed sitting, alone, in a humble studio apartment — refuses to go away. He puts on a vinyl record of a 1928 musical called, yes, "The Drowsy Chaperone." And his drab little apartment becomes a show palace (with glitzy fantasy sets and costumes courtesy of David Gallo), with the original cast members summoned into being to recreate the production.

So we have been thoroughly primed to appreciate whatever follows, which turns out to be one of those intricately (and improbably) plotted tales of love in crisis — involving gangsters, show people, millionaires and servants — that showed up regularly in productions with titles like "Oh, Kay!" and "Sitting Pretty."

Unfortunately the musical in "The Drowsy Chaperone" isn't as astute or amusing on its own as what the Man has to say about it. The cast members are bright and eager and energetic, but with a couple of exceptions they don't quite grasp what it is they're sending up.

Musicals from the era of "The Drowsy Chaperone" had a renewed vogue in the mid-20th century, with works that ranged from pure parody (Sandy Wilson's "Boy Friend" in 1954, "Dames at Sea" in 1968- ) to retooled versions of the real thing ("No, No, Nanette" in 1971). The difference between these earlier productions and "The Drowsy Chaperone" is that the commentary — arch and adoring at the same time — was built into the style of the performances.

Appropriately for an age in which self-consciousness has become as essential (and expected) an element of human communication as vocal cords are, "The Drowsy Chaperone" divides the chores and lets Mr. Martin's character do most of the interpretive work. Everybody else, with one notable exception, just seems to be having a good old time, hamming it up in ways more reminiscent of broad television revue comedy (remember the old-movie parodies on "The Carol Burnett Show"?) than of the age of Gershwin and Kern.

Directed and choreographed with untiring buoyancy by Casey Nicholaw, the cast members include Lenny Wolpe and Jennifer Smith as a sort of George Burns and Gracie Allen team; Troy Britton Johnson as the toothy and toothsome leading man; Danny Burstein as an overacting pseudo-Latin lover; and Beth Leavel as a strutting, martini-swigging vamp, enlisted as chaperone on the wedding day of one Janet Van De Graaff (Sutton Foster), darling of the Broadway stage, who is about to give it all up for love.

By the way, while "No, No, Nannette" had Ruby Keeler (the tap-dancing ingénue of the film "42nd Street") on board as a performer to lend nostalgia-enhancing authenticity, "The Drowsy Chaperone" has Georgia Engel, who plays a ditsy, feathery-voiced rich woman. Ms. Engel, you may recall, portrayed Georgette, Ted Baxter's dimwitted girlfriend, on "Mary Tyler Moore." More than 30 years later she looks and sounds almost exactly the same, which sort of confuses the issues of what we're being sentimental about.

Oh, well. Ms. Engel and Edward Hibbert (who plays an inflexibly proper butler) perform spit take after spit take with gusto, as well as a sweet duet when they discover their love for each other. And the rest of the cast tap-dances up such a storm that you have no choice but to applaud. But the genuine wit lies almost entirely in Mr. Martin's asides and annotations.

The one performer who makes us forget about Mr. Martin is Ms. Foster, who has hitherto been known for her exhausting peppiness in shows like "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Little Women." As Janet the Broadway glamourpuss, a part that would seem made for excess, Ms. Foster instead pulls in the reins and gives a gloriously artificial, deadpan account of a woman who is almost as in love with love as she is with herself.

A little number called "Show Off" — in which Janet sings that she no longer needs attention while doing everything she can (including cartwheels) to hold the spotlight — is the one song that, on its own, lifts the audience into a helium paradise of pure pleasure. (Over all the songs, while serviceably imitative of the 1920's, are forgettable.)

Otherwise you have to squint compassionately to imagine that the characters onstage are as Mr. Martin would have us believe they are. Though I could have done without some shrill revelations about his character's mother fixation, Man in the Chair is a vital addition to the gallery of Broadway archetypes.

Judging by audience reaction to "The Drowsy Chaperone," his hunger for a bona fide escapist musical would seem to be shared by many. If this production doesn't entirely fulfill that wish, it at least lets audiences express it in one fed-up communal voice.

Updated On: 3/22/07 at 10:21 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:28pm

That's very solidly positive. It should help a lot at the box office and around awards time.

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:29pm

Wow... and Brantley liked Sutton!

[Qfan2.0]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:29pm

:oes Happy Dance:: Oh Yea

[VinnieTheIceman]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:30pm

Positive, but I'm not so sure it's solidly positive. Either way not enough to get it past Jersey Boys for Best Musical.

[maybethistime]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:30pm

I AM SO HAPPY!

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:31pm

This is really what this extremely dull season needed.

Out of the new musicals this season, Drowsy seems to be the one that has the potential to sweep the Tonys.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:32pm

Wow, he REALLY likes Sutton & Bob.

And he liked the show better than I thought he would. Overall these reviews should make the box office phones ring off the hook for a while.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:32pm

That's okay folks. As my friends who work in publicity say, there's at least half a dozen money quotes in Ben's revew. We can work with that.

Put all these reviews together and you have a hit.

As an expatriot Canadian, who has always loved this show, I am, er, defying gravity.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:32pm

Umm, from broadway.com's review:

"Nicholaw (whose choreography for Spamalot earned him a Tony)..."

Mitchell won for La Cage, so that is definitely not true.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:34pm

I think he meant to say "Tony nomination", which Nicholaw most certainly did receive for Spamalot.

[Benzy92]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:37pm

Hmm.. i'd call Ben Brantley's review "Mixed" but if people seem to think thats positive, then thats great :)

At least he loved Bob and Sutton, who were both incredible, and worthy of Tony nominations!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:38pm

Brantley is hardly the determinant of how the Tony voting goes. Remember he panned Thoroughly Modern Millie and Sutton Foster and raved about Urinetown -- and we see how that race went.

I actually think it's the sort of show that would appeal to alarge cross section of Tony voters. That's a point Riedel -- to the extent his opinion matters -- made in his column last week. He's been touting Jersey Boys for months as the no contest Best Musical winner this season. But after talking to several voters who found themselves swept away by the show identifying with the narrator, he's revised his opinion and now thinks Drowsy has a solid shot to win. Add to that the 14 Drama Desk nominations Drowsy received (to Jersey Boys' 8 ) and I think that this is a real contest this year.

Updated On: 5/1/06 at 10:38 PM

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:40pm

I also think Tony Voters will see how badly Drowsy needs a Tony win to run, whereas Jersey Boys with its mass appeal obviously does not need a Best Musical win to run..

[Steve2]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:42pm

Oh how I wish I were seeing this instead of Lestat on my upcoming trip! I am glad I saw it in LA, though. I sure would be interested in hearing about any changes made for Broadway.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:42pm

Wow; could DROWSY win Best Musical? Hmmm....

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:43pm

Just back from the show and I loved the mixture of joy, cynicism, over-the-top and wit.

Loved the monkey song and the crazy monkeys with the VERY Loud symbols. The performers all got these crazy monkeys to hang around their necks as gifts onstage at the end of the show--very cute.

I also loved the out of the blue Chinese number and how the man in the chair pointed out who the stars were (and let you know how they ended up).

Drowsy Chaperone is like The Wedding Singer but on really good drugs.

[Qfan2.0]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 10:43pm

did every critic make fun of lestat in their review?