Drowsy Chaperone Reviews- Page 4

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:33pm

I agree, WickedRocks. I think this is a three horse race this season: Drowsy Chaperone, Jersey Boys, and Color Purple.

I would be surprised to see any of the actors (with the exeption of Beth Leavel) take home any awards, though.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:40pm

"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."

Just goes to show--there's no accounting for taste (or spelling!!). Thank God Brantley called this second-rate, amateur piece of goods for what it is! Go, Ben!


Mayella Ewell
Maycomb, Alabama

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:40pm

It seems like the problem of "mass appeal" plagues all the sleeper hits. Avenue Q, Urinetown, and now Drowsy. Everyone wonders how they'll be able to tour because they're such small shows and such as mall appeal. I think Drowsy, with some sort of "star" power - maybe if Bob Martin toured - would sell pretty well. Most cities have a ton of season subscribers, so I would imagine it would still sell fine. I hope Drowsy wins, I think it needs it more than Jersey. And I just couldn't listen to Jersey OBC - it was so...boring. I wish Color Purple would win, actually, but it won't. Oprah doesn't have that much pull. I hope Wedding Singer gets at least nominated though.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:42pm

"The crtics don't have much worth here, remember SIDESHOW."

Remember what? That it was a deservedly horrid flop?


Any self-respecting Tony voter will know that JERSEY BOYS, jukebox score and all, is a far superior and better-crafted entertainment than the amateur CHAPERONE and will vote accordingly. No contest.



Allison MacKenzie
Peyton Place, New Hampshire
Updated On: 5/1/06 at 11:42 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:44pm

I think Martin will snag a Best Actor nod and Beth Leavel and Sutton Foster will both get nods for their supporting work.

BEST ACTOR IN A MUSICAL should go something like this:
Michael Cerveris, Sweeney Todd
Bob Martin, The Drowsy Chaperone
John Lloyd Young, Jersey Boys
Harry Connick Jr, The Pajama Game
Stephen Lynch, The Wedding Singer (Tarzan's Josh Strickland could very well take this slot as well)

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL should go like this:
Felicia P. Fields, The Color Purple
Elisabeth Withers Mendes, The Color Purple
Amy Spanger, The Wedding Singer
Beth Leavel, The Drowsy Chaperone
Sutton Foster, The Drowsy Chaperone

(Spanger's slot could be taken by Megan Lawrence but it's doubtful. Spanger won't win anyway and neither would Lawrence so either would be a "filler nominee" *just someone to take up the last slot; to be recognized for their great work but most likely not a possible winner*)

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:48pm

And if anyone cares, as of now, I think Young will win Best Actor and truly and honestly, Best Supporting Actress is a four-way race between Foster, Leavel, Fields, and Mendes. I only saw Fields and Mendes' performances and thought they were both brilliant. Foster already has a Tony and was nominated last year again so it's doubtful she'd win; Leavel is apparently quite good in her role and very funny and between Mendes and Fields, I would probably choose Fields' performance so if I had to choose a winner as of now, it would be Felicia Fields.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:49pm

TheEnchantedHunter you're such a Debby Downer.




Thanks Bobby - Grammar ain't my thing. Updated On: 5/2/06 at 11:49 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:54pm

Sorry for the whole thread-jacking thing but I said in a previous post a while back that I thought a win for DROWSY in any category will be hard. While I still am waiting for these reviews to all come out, I'd like to take that comment back and I will fairly break its Tony odds down after I actually see the show (maybe this weekend?).


Anyway, any new reviews?
Updated On: 5/1/06 at 11:54 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/1/06 at 11:58pm

TheaterMania looks positive; if not a rave:


Just after The Drowsy Chaperone begins, the musical comedy-loving narrator identified in the program as Man in Chair (Bob Martin) plays what is supposedly the original cast recording of a fictional '20s tuner called The Drowsy Chaperone. Instantly, the show materializes in the fellow's high-ceilinged Manhattan apartment with its gated windows. Quick as you can say "Fred and Adele Astaire," David Gallo's ingenious sets partly transform the drab dwelling into what is meant to be the various gilded rooms and frou-frou garden of a Long Island mansion.

Yes, I know. Here we have yet another musical about musicals, enterprises so numerous we now have words for them: "metamusicals" and "self-referential musicals." The notion of perpetrating such a production is about as fresh as Sunday's bagels -- from a Sunday in, say, 1948, when Carol Channing and her Lend an Ear colleagues spoofed Jazz-Age songfests in that show's "Gladiola Girl" sketch. During the past 10 years alone, we've had Urinetown: The Musical, The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Musical of Musicals, Spamalot and [title of show], all of which have sent up musical comedy conventions to one extent or another.

By now, we should be worn out by the subject, shouldn't we? Lucky for us, an extremely talented group has gamboled into town with a new musical about musicals. They're songwriters Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, librettists Bob Martin (who also gives an award-winning performance as Man in Chair) and Don McKellar, director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw, and an ensemble of performers so accomplished that you want to jump in the air and click your heels. The best new musical of the season has arrived, and it ought to keep audiences smiling, laughing, and clapping their mitts off for some time to come -- even folks who have only the faintest understanding of what '20s musicals were like.

---------------------------------------------------------

The creators have structured their intermissionless, 85-minute whopper so adroitly that everyone in the ensemble gets an opportunity to sparkle in the spotlight (lighting design by Ken Billington and Brian Monahan). So you won't find preferences expressed here for Leavel over Engel, or Hibbert over Eddie Korbich (as the hero's best man), or Danny Burstein (as the lothario Adolpho) over Johnson. All are equal to but not better than Garth Kravits and Jason Kravits as two thugs impersonating pastry chefs. In their synchronized vaudevillian movements, these lads recall -- for those who know their trivia -- Teddy Hart and Jimmy Savo in the original cast of The Boys From Syracuse. Here's a nonpareil musical-comedy cast being put through its paces by a fountain-of-whimsy director.

The Drowsy Chaperone is founded on a slender thread of a premise that I feel duty-bound to report: Man in Chair claims that he's playing an original cast album but, for a musical that supposedly opened in 1928, there is almost no likelihood that a recording of "the full show with the original cast" would exist. Still, so what? Premises for musicals, especially '20s musical, have habitually been as thin as Foster in her finery -- and few have been so utterly the bee's knees as The Drowsy Chaperone.


http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/8170
Updated On: 5/2/06 at 11:58 PM

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:01am

you're not your

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:07am

Harry Connick can't act to save his life!!!??? why would he get nominated???

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:12am

Gee, Enchantedhunter, you've taken a negative attitude to this show for weeks now. Did you have a bad seat or something?

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:28am

The Fact that Young is not singing the whole show
will affect his chances.
He can Win but I think Cervaris will TOP Him.
But people i talk to LOVE Connick.
Acting aside

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:29am

Thats it, it's oficial: CLIVE BARNES IS A COMPLETE & UTTER ASS who needs to be FIRED ASAP!

He dislikes it and gives it only 1 Star!

I can always agree to disagree...but he doesn't even make any good points. His review seems more tired than the look he sees in the mirror every morning.

http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/63202.htm

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:30am

Variety is a Rave:

"In the opening moments of the irresistible new musical "The Drowsy Chaperone," a voice from the darkened stage breaks the silence, reflecting on the pre-curtain prayers of the perennially disappointed theatergoer. Wistfully recalling a time when first-nighters tingled with anticipation of what the Gershwins or Cole Porter had in store for them, the unseen speaker then laments that now, it's "Please, Elton John, must we continue this charade?" For many in the press-night crowd, the memory was all too vivid of groaning, snoring and shifting in their seats through "Lestat" a few days earlier, so the line could hardly have been better timed.

A witty valentine from musical theater lovers to the frothy tuners of the 1920s, this refreshing cocktail of a show gets the audience on its side in the opening minutes and keeps them there for the duration. Sure, the score, by Second City alumni Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, is pastiche, and purists can quibble about its period authenticity. But like "The Producers," this is superior, smartly crafted pastiche and no less entertaining for being so.

What's more remarkable, the show's sufficiently steeped in musical theater lore to tickle aficionados while its charm and laughs never risk shutting out broader auds. Wink-nudge in-jokes are rationed to avoid a condescending air of contemporary superiority. The Canadian creative team (Bob Martin and Don McKellar wrote the book) infuses its take on the genre with irony, but the genuine affection behind their simultaneous celebration of it is never in doubt.

Adding directing duties to choreography after shepherding the dancing knights of "Spamalot," Casey Nicholaw confidently marshals a large cast in a show whose metatheatrical action combines separate and intertwined playing fields, recalling "The Boyfriend." Helping maintain the buoyancy are the inventive designs of David Gallo (sets) and Gregg Barnes (costumes).
________________________________________________________________

The wafer-thinness of the droll plot is an essential element of the comedy: There's a reason this show is a forgotten one, after all. Martin's character makes no claims for classic status but regards it as something of a guilty pleasure, colored by personal associations.

So it fits also that the tunes are more serviceable than inspired. Even so, Lambert and Morrison have written some sparkling comic numbers....
______________________________________________________________

Via its endearing onstage host, "The Drowsy Chaperone" extends a warm embrace to every show queen and misfit theater geek who ever escaped a dreary day-to-day existence by sticking a cast recording on a turntable and disappearing into the cocooning fantasy world of a musical."



http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117930377?categoryid=1265&cs=1

Updated On: 5/2/06 at 12:30 AM

[Princeton78]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:34am

Barnes is entitled to an opinion....
I enjoyed myself, adored Sutton and Danny's performances and thought Bob Martin was adorable and witty. The show was frothy, cute and entertaining, but otherwise, I thought much of the music was forgettable, and some of the performers were useless.

I think that if we're looking at the Best Musical Tony race, that 'Jersey Boys' is a much stronger competitor.

Updated On: 5/2/06 at 12:34 AM

[Princeton78]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:35am

"Via its endearing onstage host, "The Drowsy Chaperone" extends a warm embrace to every show queen and misfit theater geek who ever escaped a dreary day-to-day existence by sticking a cast recording on a turntable and disappearing into the cocooning fantasy world of a musical."

If I were the producers, i'd not use this quote in my ads.

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:37am

Barnes, yes, is entitled to his opinion; but his reviews make my head spin more often than not.

So far:

RAVES from:
AP, VARIETY, The NY DAILY NEWS, NEWSDAY, Broadway.com, Theatermania.com

GOOD from:
The New York Times

MIXED from:
The USA Today, Bloomberg, Talkinbroadway.com

and CON from:
The New York Post

Updated On: 5/2/06 at 12:37 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:40am

This show has Best Book tied up at the very least. The only other competitor is Jersey Boys, and whichever takes Best Book, the other will take Musical.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:40am

I had so much fun at this show in LA, I am glad it is getting good notices in NY!

[jdixon69]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:43am

"This show has Best Book tied up at the very least."

Not if Clive has anything to say about it...

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:47am

"This show has Best Book tied up at the very least. The only other competitor is Jersey Boys, and whichever takes Best Book, the other will take Musical."

---> I don't get this. Shouldn't the winner of best book win best musical? I mean, wouldn't the best musical winner also have the best book? (...I should study for finals but this damn website has me addicted)

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:50am

And the monkey's CYMBOLS were loud too and I loved them.

When did TheEnconstipatedHunter become SUCH a bore?

Frankly, Drowsy is just a very fun show and I don't care that much about the Tonys.

It's the making of the art that's so wonderful, the Tonys are just a cypher that sometimes recognizes some people and shows for that effort.

Updated On: 5/2/06 at 12:50 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:58am

""This show has Best Book tied up at the very least. The only other competitor is Jersey Boys, and whichever takes Best Book, the other will take Musical."

---> I don't get this. Shouldn't the winner of best book win best musical? I mean, wouldn't the best musical winner also have the best book? (...I should study for finals but this damn website has me addicted)"


RentBoy86, the awards are given for the following qualifications:

Best Book: Best Script/Story

Best Score: Best Music & Lyrics

Best Musical: Best PRODUCTION of a new musical

Updated On: 5/2/06 at 12:58 AM

[LouW95]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 12:58am

Not an actor but in the business and know many.