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music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison, book by Bob Martin & Don McKellar, directed by Max Reimer

Drayton Entertainment, St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, St. Jacobs

March 29-April 15, 2018

“Wedding bells will ding-a-ling

And we will ding along”

The current Drayton Entertainment production is the most fun I have had seeing The Drowsy Chaperone since its early run in 1999 at Theatre Passe Muraille.  The full-scale Mirvish incarnation at the Winter Garden Theatre in 2001 didn’t capture the show’s vitality and the Dancap presentation of the Broadway tour at the Elgin Theatre felt over-produced.  With the Drayton production we have a show that perfectly balances the show’s level of intimacy (it all takes place in a bachelor apartment after all) with the glamour of a faux-1920s musical.  With an ideal cast under the polished direction of Max Reimer, this version of Drowsy is one I could see again and again.

The conceit of the show is that a lover of musicals, a mousy man in a sweater sitting in a chair in his drab one-room apartment (known simply as Man in Chair), is feeling a bit down today.  To cheer himself up he decides to play a record on his old stereo set of the (fictional) 1928 musical The Drowsy Chaperone with music by Julie Gable and lyrics by Sidney Stein.  As the musical plays it comes to life in his apartment.  The Man in Chair (Mike Nadajewski), who is strangely aware that he has an audience, is very concerned about our remaining in the moment and being transported by the show to “another world, a world full of colour and music and glamour”.  Nevertheless, he is so knowledgeable about the performers and their careers that he can’t stop himself from constantly interrupting the action with his store of trivia about them and the show.  His commentary shows he is fully aware of the various failings of the piece, but he loves it anyway.  Drowsy, including its frame, is one of those rare musicals where the dialogue is as witty as the songs.  The musical plus its commentary thus becomes a loving satire of the entire genre of musical comedy.  Hence, the show’s subtitle, “A Musical Within a Comedy”.    

The plot of the musical within the comedy concerns the upcoming marriage of Janet Van De Graaff (Jayme Armstrong), star of the Feldzieg Follies, to the heir of an oil fortune Robert Martin (Kyle Golemba).  In order to make sure that the groom does not see the bride before the wedding, Janet has a Chaperone (Gabrielle Jones), who, though its it still Prohibition in America, is perpetually “drowsy” due to her drinking habit.   

In marrying Robert, Janet plans to give up the stage, but Feldzieg (Cliff Saunders) feels if she goes, his Follies will collapse.  So does his mobster investor who has sent two Gangsters disguised as pastry chefs (Gregory Pember and Aaron Walpole) to insure that the marriage does not take place.  Feldzieg’s plan is to have the famed Latin lover Aldolpho (Andrew Scanlon), seduce Janet so that Robert will call off the wedding.  Everyone’s plans go awry but still everything turns out right in the end.

Having only ever seen Bob Martin, the creator of Man in Chair, play the role three times, I had always assumed that no one could ever equal his performance.  Mike Nadajewski has proved me wrong.  He has his own wry, self-deprecating manner that infuses all he says.  It’s as if his Man in Chair knows his fund of trivia is meaningless to anyone else yet is compelled to reveal it anyway.  Nadajewski’s comic timing is perfect and he makes his Man in Chair sympathetic since his deep desire to escape the everyday via musicals points to his ordinary life as being unfulfilling.

Jayme Armstrong and Kyle Golemba are well matched as Janet and Robert since both performers are able to achieve the difficult task of looking attractive yet appearing slightly dim at the same time, ideal qualities in young lovers in the 1920s.  Robert is getting nervous about the wedding, i.e. he is getting “Cold Feets”, and to warm them up he launches into a fantastic tap dance number where he is joined by his best man George (Tim Porter) in a remarkable show of energy and precision.  Golemba also has a fine voice and sense of humour that he displays to great effect in the number “Accident Waiting to Happen”.

As the title character Gabreille Jones is a delight even if she never seems particularly inebriated.  Her Chaperone’s alcohol tolerance is so high that Jones has her pass out before ever reaching a stage of slurred speech.  She makes the Chaperone’s wit like her martinis especially dry and sings her great inspirational song “As We Stumble Along” as if it were the “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” of the show instead of a “rousing anthem to alcoholism” as the Man in Chair calls it.

As Adolpho, Andrew Scanlon is fully over the top which is just as it should be, yet unlike other Adolpho's I’ve seen, he is not so far gone that he no longer fits into a faux-1920s show.  Cliff Saunders has fun as the blowhard theatrical producer Feldzieg and Jennifer Thiessen is expert at playing the chorus girl Kitty, who may not be quite as ditzy as she seems.

What comes out more in this production than in previous ones I’ve seen is the affectionate relationship between the dotty matron Mrs. Tottendale (Glynnis Ranney), who will host the wedding, and her butler Underling (Keith Savage).  Director Max Reimer accomplishes this primarily by having Underling correct Tottendale’s frequent lapses in short-term memory not with disdain but with sympathy.  This helps give such a satirical show the warm heart at the centre it needs.        

Gregory Pember and Aaron Walpole as two disguised gangsters are an hilarious team frequently allowing their trays of glued-on Swiss rolls and eclairs to slip to reveal the artifice.  Their rapport and interest in show business reminds one instantly of the two gangsters in Kiss Me, Kate.  Just when a deus ex machina is needed Trix the Aviatrix (Nadine Roden) arrives and exuberantly leads the cast in the soaring finale. 

Samantha Burson has designed a delightfully clever magic box of a set where items in Man in Chair’s dingy apartment, like his refrigerator, can be transformed into an elegant entranceway.  Rachel Berchtold has designed an abundance of colourful period costumes so that hardly any woman re-enters the stage without a costume change.  Robin Calvert is a whizz at choreographing complex dance scenes, including Robert’s blindfolded rollerskating number, in a relatively confined space so that we never feel the cast is cramped. Her managing of the big song-and-dance number “Toledo Surprise” is a delightful surprise on many levels.  

While the new ending of the Broadway version of the show seemed sentimental when I first saw it in 2007, Max Reimer has made it feel like the natural culmination of the show.  Man in Chair had said that in a musical he wanted to be “taken to another world, a world full of colour and music and glamour”.  In such a self-conscious, metatheatrical show as this, it now seems perfectly natural that after all the Man in Chair’s reactions to the show, the show itself should react to him and fulfill his desire. 

The Drowsy Chaperone is a delectable show but is being staged only at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse in Drayton’s 2018 season.  Let’s hope that in future this joyful production travels to some of Drayton’s other theatres because this funny, ingenious (and Canadian) work is so well performed, designed and directed, it deserves to be seen by as many theatre-goers as possible.

       

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photos: (from top) Mike Nadajewski as Man in Chair; Gregory Pember and Aaron Walpole as the Gangsters, Jayme Armstrong as Janet and Cliff Saunders as Mr. Feldzieg; Andrew Scanlon as Adolpho and Gabrielle Jones as The Drowsy Chaperone. ©2018 Hilary Gauld Camilleri.

For tickets, visit www.draytonentertainment.com/drowsy-chaperone-stjacobs.