The Drowsy Chaperone: And All That Jazz Age

Whereas Reefer Madness used comedy to tell its chilling cautionary tale, The Drowsy Chaperone uses satire mostly for the sake of being funny. The frame story with the Man In The Chair is not exactly light-hearted (it's about how something you love can both make you feel better about being alone as well as isolate you), there is no message that links the present to the time being parodied. The 1920s is often portrayed as an endless party (as long as you were wealthy, reminds the Man In Chair), and the show does a fantastic job of pointing out some of the flaws of that view as well as the many cliches from and about the time.

The basic story is about a lonely man (known only as the Man In The Chair) whose only source of pleasure is an old recording of a play from 1928 entitled The Drowsy Chaperone. It appears that he has a kind of love/hate relationship with it; before it begins, he talks about how wonderful it is, but as the show progresses, he pauses the record to comment on the silliness of the scene/dialogue/musical number. The show-within-a-show is an over-the-top, cliche-ridden story of "mix-ups, mayhem, and a gay wedding"; the bride is a narcissistic showgirl who plans on giving up the stage to marry a man she hardly knows. A man who is even more full of himself than she is, and is the biggest klutz imaginable. Janet, the bride-to-be, is being hounded by her producer to call off the wedding, since he will have no show if she quits. And the maid of honor (the titular chaperone, who never receives a name other than, "chaperone") is an over-the-hill boozer (despite the fact that it was prohibition) who is only around for the alcohol. Robert (the groom) has a best man (George) who is convinced that he is responsible for making sure the wedding goes well (he tells Robert that the role of best man is more difficult than that of the groom), the woman who owns the luxurious mansion the wedding is being held at is delightfully senile, and two gangsters posing as pastry chefs are around to make sure that the producer can convince Janet to call off the wedding (their employer is the biggest investor in the show Janet is the star of). However, the gangsters are 1920s-style ideas of gangsters, meaning that they speak in bad puns and engage in overly stylized gestures and movements. As you can see, the cast of characters is not exactly realistic.

As the show goes on, the Man In Chair tries to explain why certain things happen, such as the Chaperone's song about alcoholism; the "actress" who played the Chaperone (he gives backstories on most of the fictional actors and actresses who played the parts) demanded rousing anthems in every show she ever performed, even if it wasn't appropriate. Another example involves Aldolpho, possibly the funniest character in the show. His character is nothing more than a collection of outrageous stereotypes about Europeans (he is some mixture of Spanish , Italian, and French), and the Man In Chair tries in vain to justify the character's existence.

For the audience, the simplistic plot (the Man In Chair remarks that the entire show is summed up in one sentence at the beginning of the play-within-the-play), outrageous characters, implausible twists, and awesomely bad ending (wherein nearly everyone in the show gets married) add up to an incredibly funny experience. I am realizing while writing this that there isn't much beyond the surface to analyze, but I think that is the point. The show satirizes meaningless, awesomely bad entertainment. If a modern audience were to go see the show-within-a-show that was being played seriously, they would most likely hate it (then again, there is a shit-ton of mindless crap today that people eat up), but the product we have show that not only can mindless entertainment be fun (as long as you know what you're in for), it can also be smart (I love oxymorons).

Part of the reason the play works so well is because of the way the story is told. The Man In Chair's apartment becomes the stage of the play, and he attempts to interact with the actors, even though, from their point of view, he doesn't exist. When he pauses the record, the actors freeze. When something in the "real world" disrupts the show (like a ringing telephone), it drowns out the show. And when the incorrect record is played when the second act begins, all kinds of hilarity ensues.

I didn't realize until I started writing this that this is more of a recommendation than an examination, but this is definitely something worth seeing. Fans of musical theater will love it for the same reasons non-fans will; it makes fun of (but also praises) the genre in very accurate and fun ways.

Up next: Neil Gaiman's first appearance in The Other Worlds...