Could the metatheatrical be in the ascendant on Broadway? Let's see: We've got The Threepenny Opera at Studio 54, cued from Brecht's in-your-face theories, and Lisa Kron's Well, cued from, well, the metatheatrics of Lisa Kron. Fascinating as those are, The Drowsy Chaperone is a wet kiss to the musical's hold on its fans, a metatheatrical dive into ecstasy.
The conceit is simple: Man in Chair (Bob Martin, who co-wrote the book with Don McKellar and whose history with the show, conceived as a present to his real-life wife, has been well reported) is a curly-coiffed frump, sitting in his flat and playing -- after acknowledging us -- an LP of The Drowsy Chaperone, a mythical 1928 musical that comes to life.
Like most '20s tuners, real or imagined, the show-within-the-show is as deep as an inch of bathtub gin: Janet Van De Graaff (Sutton Foster), a narcissistic star, is to marry Robert Martin (Troy Britton Johnson), all teeth and brilliantine. Their nuptials should be fine as new spats but for loose subplots about the best man (Eddie Korbich), Janet's producer (Lenny Wolpe) and his ditzy seducer (Jennifer Smith), a loose-lipped Latin Lothario (Danny Burstein), a daffy dowager (Georgia Engel) and her stringent servant (Edward Hibbert), two pun-loving gangsters (Jason Kravits and Garth Kravits), a high-flying aviatrix (Kecia Lewis-Evans), and a drowsy chaperone (Beth Leavel) for whom bathtub gin is an aperitif.
Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison's score is a pastiche, a popover neither sweet nor plain. Let purists grouse: What '20s tuner, real or imagined, lacks catchy melodies? I suspect the score wasn't written with this rationalization in mind, but I think having few standout songs is astute: Why be distracted by standards that were never written? It is the '20s musical being put under the satirical microscope, and thus is revealed something sweet, if sad, about très fey Man in Chair.
While Man in Chair gives us backstory bits on The Drowsy Chaperone's cadre of fictional actors, none intrigues as much as Beatrice Stockwell, who played the titular role in the show-within-the-show and is played for real by the icily funny Beth Leavel. We're told that Stockwell, a Coolidge-era supernova, always demanded anthems to sing. She gets one with an appropriately boozy title, "As We Stumble Along," but it is platitudinous -- which is what we laugh at.
In this sense, the book echoes the score. There's an extended spit-take scene between Engel and Hibbert that says "Ha!" to those who loathe low comedy on our stages. The gangsters' puns, too, are awful, thus giving us giggly groans. Burstein's buffoonish cartoon Aldolpho is a sitz bath of asinine delight.
But I laughed most at the show's inventive metatheatricality: The LP skips and The Drowsy Chaperone before us does too. After he plays the first LP, representing Act I of the show-within-the-show, Man in Chair must dash to the loo, and he thinks he's putting on Act II so the show can go on in his absence. For a bit he's playing the wrong show -- another fictional musical, this one set in the Orient -- before busting back on stage to fix things. We're forever aware of watching myths.
Casey Nicholaw directs The Drowsy Chaperone with an eye on time (the show is intermissionless) and an eye on the conceit, knowing it only goes so far. Best of all, I no longer view Sutton Foster as a gangly voice trapped in a charisma-challenged body. Her big number, "Show Off," dazzles, yet she is finely sewn into this crackerjack ensemble.
Presented by Kevin McCollum, Roy Miller, Boyett Ostar Productions, Stephanie McClelland, Barbara Freitag, and Jill Furman at the Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, NYC. Opened May 1 for an open run. Mon.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m. Casting by Bernie Telsey Casting.