Drowsy's "Monkey Ballet" cut?

I read the BWW interview with Sutton, and she says the Monkey Ballet that they did in L.A. was cut for Broadway!

If anyone out there has seen both productions, I'd love to know what's different.

I can tell you that in Los Angeles, there is a whole section with "dream ballet" dancers taking the place of the leads (like in "Oklahoma!"), and lots of abstract sets and locations (including Paris), ala Gene Kelly's many film ballets. It was very funny and over-the-top. Is this all GONE now in the NYC production?

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I saw it in April and I definitely don't remember that ballet. What a shame, because it sounds hillarious.

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The dream/monkey ballet performed in Los Angeles was all about ROBERT and how he has to marry JANET or else GEORGE will die. All this while trying to recap the plot of the show. It was a funny sequence, but it was too long and drawn out. And IMHO that style of theatre was introduced in the 50's. The story of The Drowsy Chaperone was set in the 20's.

The new dance sequence on Broadway makes it JANET's dream with monkeys dancing all around her with cymbols crashing and stuff. There's no recapping of plot line, it's just a dance number now. It's a shorter dance sequence - shorter by about 3 days.

Actually, it's about 4 minutes or so. The Los Angeles ballet was about 8 minutes or so.

I'm proud to say that I've seen the Los Angles production and the Broadway production and that I'm happy with the new changes they settled for on broadway - especially the fact that they gave GEORGE a spotlight moment (he had this early on in Los Angeles, but was cut out during the regular run)... although... I miss the big round spikey globe structure that used to be in the Garden scene.

TicketMediaGuy -- You know, you're right! While the dream ballet in L.A. was very funny, it definitely evolved out of the Oklahoma! dream ballet (1943) and several Gene Kelly films, starting with On the Town ( 1948 ), An American In Paris (1951) and Singin' in the Rain (1952).

Some of the dialogue was very funny though from Bob Martin. When he talked about switching to the dream ballet to use "better dancers" than the main leads. And when he said, "Suddenly... We're in Paris! And for no reason!"

The sets were very abstract... like the "illustrated" backdrops used in the film "Singin' in the Rain." And we were thrown into a cafe, ala "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" or the "Gotta Dance" sequence in "Rain" again. I thought it was hilarious! And the dancers had so much fun with it.

But it did go on for a long time (which was Man In Chair's point). So did many of the famous Kelly dream sequences. However, most these honored references were from decades later!

I'm glad I got to see it, and it was one of my favorite sequences, because it pulled the audience completely out of the old 1920s, show as well as Man In Chairs apartment. It all disappeared.

But I understand the reason for the change now. I need to see it on Broadway now to compare the two.

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I definitely remember it from the L.A. show. It was called "Groom's Reverie", and it followed "Bride's Lament." However, it was just too long, and after hearing Sutton sing about monkeys with her beautiful voice, you're suddenly hearing this horrible voice (I don't like Troy Britton Johnson's faux-voice at all) singing about them, and it's just not funny. :)

"I also love the spikey ball in the garden. I'm suprised they cut it out. Maybe it was dangerous?"

My friend and I were both contemplating why they didn't have it at the Marquis. Could it be that there's not a whole lot of room underneath the stage at the Marquis? The Ahmanson is like a cavern under the stage. That thing was as tall as Troy was when he was on his rollerskates.

Incidentally, if you see the show at the Marquis and look at the boxes above the refridgerator, you'll find some of the arrows that were used in the spikey ball garden sculpter. They were there during the Ahmanson run as well. :) And there's TONS of Monkey motiffs all over Man In Chair's apartment... as well as the REAL Robert Martin's wedding photo. :)

Updated On: 6/2/06 at 05:43 PM

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