In 1998, the short and sweet musical The Drowsy Chaperone was created in Toronto as a bachelor party gift for creators Bob Martin and Janet Van de Graaff. The first public performance was held the following year at the Toronto Fringe Festival and premiered on Broadway in 2006, where it won five Tony Awards. And the entire affair remains a meta meditation on the trappings and staying power of musical theater, featuring lead characters also named Janet and Bob/Robert.
Martin and Don McKellar wrote the book, and Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison wrote the music and lyrics. Theo Ubique’s charming production is directed by real-life couple L. Walter Stearns and Eugene Dizon, who, as musical director, leads the lively band on piano, along with Lindsay Williams (drums/percussion), Sophie Creutz (reed instruments) and Michael Leavens (trumpet).
Theo’s cozy, 80-seat, deep-thrust space is encircled by various doors, perfect for slamming when the 13 characters careen in and out of the hijinks, narrated on stage by Man in Chair (a kind Steve McDonagh). He’s an average man in a modest apartment with a refrigerator door full of magnets near a bank of windows (behind which the band plays). To perpetuate the play’s self-awareness, some of the audience actually sit near him onstage at the kitchen table and on some flanking couches (designed by Bob Knuth), where he listens to the record album and explains his love for the fictitious 1928 musical. He needle-drops throughout the cast recording as his favorite musical comes to life, the scratchy recording sounding like the ignition on a time machine.
The cast is universally game and blend well together, both with dance moves (choreography by Jenna Schoppe and Britta Schied) that include tap numbers and use every inch of the space including tabletops, and with hilarious, high-energy singing. Set during Prohibition, the gang is gathered for the marriage of famous actor Janet (delightful Kelsey MacDonald) and Robert (earnest Trey Plutnicki), who are being kept apart by the titular blowsy and drowsy Chaperone (confident Colette Todd). But she becomes distracted and besotted with sot Aldolpho (charismatic Darian Goulding), a lothario who’s working with Feldzeig, a name-flip of the famous Follies producer (clever Reginald Hemphill), to stop the wedding and keep his star in show business.
Robert’s best friend and best man George (Kevin Chlapecka) tries to keep the wedding on track, despite interference from two infiltrating gangsters (Jimmy Hogan and Chase Wheaton-Werle), doyenne Mrs. Tottendale (Jenny Rudnick) and her gopher Underling (Peter Ruger), starstruck chorine Kitty (Luiza Vitucci), and Trix (Lena Simone) the aviatrix, “what we now call a lesbian.”
The flow of meta theatrical references mostly land, like “theater was the only place that stupid people could earn a living,” that musical theater and pornography have many similarities, and that most theatrical stereotypes have now been banished to Disney projects. The result is a confection of a songbook, evocative of both Jazz Age and late 20th-century productions, somewhat bittersweet, but mostly fluffy, energetic and fun.
The Drowsy Chaperone runs through April 19 at Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, 721 Howard St. in Evanston (just across the street from the Chicago city limits), three blocks west of the Howard L stop. Performances are Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6pm, and tickets are $33-$66. Grab a delicious pre-show bite or a bracing post-show drink down the block at the Peckish Pig, 623 Howard St. (reservations recommended at 847-491-6778 as it gets crowded on the weekend). Theo also offers an in-venue bar.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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