Actors portray the two main emotions of the audience

Champion of the arts and drama devotee Ross Chapman bravely surrendered his Friday night to a viewing of CMTS’s “The Drowsy Chaperone”—all for you, dear reader.

After our talks with members of the Columbia Musical Theatre Society, The Drowsy Chaperone seemed like a great way to spend a Friday evening. A well-sized crowd in Roone Arledge agreed, picking up fancy playbills and filing into the same chairs you sat in for those mandatory NSOP events. At promptly 7:35 P.M., Man In Chair (portrayed by Talmage Wise, CC ’18) took his seat in the eponymous seat and set the musical into action.

Everything starts with a paradoxical monologue. “I hate theatre,” Man In Chair laments, but he goes on to elaborate that he really hates new theatre. He longs for a simpler time, one where a “gay wedding” was just a happy, heteronormative event and plot, that thing that links otherwise unrelated production numbers, was only as important in musicals as it was in porn (his words, not mine). So he puts on a record and transports the audience to the past.

The opening number, “Fancy Dress,” sets up the show in two ways. It introduces the concept of the play-within-the-play, the marriage of Robert Martin (Sam Balzac, CC ’17) and Janet Van De Graaff (Lacey Bookspan, BC ’17), and all of its ancillary characters. It also establishes the mood, one of a decidedly farcical and nonsensical piece of fun fiction. Throughout the musical, a tension emerges between the whimsical world of Man In Chair’s vinyl and the harsh realities of his failing life. “The characters are two-dimensional and the plot is well-worn” in the fictional 1928 musical, and the piece explores Man In Chair’s relationship with that sort of setting.

The play harps on and indulges in incongruity between plot and production. Its only truly reprised number, “As We Stumble Along,” inserts itself into the middle of a scene with very little pretext. Its catchy tune and huge production help The Chaperone send out her anthem to drinking. The character of The Chaperone is an older and alcoholic friend of Janet’s. According to Man In Chair, The Chaperone was portrayed in 1928 by an older and alcoholic actress who reminds Man In Chair of his mother. (The Chaperone is played in Roone by Molly Heller, GS/JTS ’15, who is older than Lacey but is decidedly not an alcoholic.)

Entertaining things occur without any reason within the musical. In “Fancy Dress,” every character introduces themselves, including Trix, an aviatrix. She flies in, sings her verse, and leaves, only to return as a deus ex machina in the final scene. And “Bride’s Lament,” Janet’s song of sorrow, has lyrics about monkeys that Man In Chair admits have little to do with the beauty of the music. The actors handled this ludicrous play well. In the best way possible, The Drowsy Chaperone was tastefully overdone. It was self-aware, and got serious when it wanted to. It referenced tropes of musical theatre and used them while maintaining an analytic lens and amusing the audience.

At the heart of the emotion of the primary play (that is, watching Man In Chair listen to the musical) is a tension between reality and fiction. Man In Chair slowly gets absorbed into the recording. At first, he only nods his head to the numbers. But by the end of the first act, he is singing and dancing along with the actors and has to wade through them to get back to his chair and fix a skipping record. He emulates Janet in his desire for fame (or human desire) and in his romantic interest in Robert. He also identifies with The Chaperone, a similarly unnamed character with jaded reactions and a drug problem. His love for the record borders on obsessive. He ignores phone calls, pushing himself from the real world while pulling himself into the musical by attempting, but never realizing, contact with the characters. He talks about the simplicities and romanticization of the 1920’s play while exploring his own divorce and personal problems, most acutely addressed when he analyzes a line about marriage that can be heard as either “live while you can” or “leave while you can.” No matter how hard he tries, it seems that Man In Chair is stuck talking about the old musical as his world falls around him.

Jason Eisner, CC’ 17, sounded especially concerned about the racial implications of the play he directed. Aldolpho (Will Beech, CC ’16) plays a stereotypical Latin lover, and the beginning of the second act is set in a far eastern palace. At most points when something racially objectionable occurs, Man In Chair steps in and comments on how offensive it is. But he steps in a lot, and the audience at the first Friday showing seemed to me a bit more amused with the stereotypes than struck by the fact that they still exist today. Man In Chair gets much more offended by a painfully saccharine song, “Love Is Always Lovely In The End,” than he does by the racial insensitivities. He even indulges in his own racism at times, demeaning his cleaning lady in enunciating, “No touch records, Carmella.” Keeping in mind last year’s production of Top Girl, the response by The Drowsy Chaperone to a yellowface scene seemed subdued. But in a continuing effort, CMTS will join the Asian Politcal Collective and the Asian American Alliance to discuss the handling of racial stereotypes from 8 to 10 P.M. on Monday, November 24^th in Hamilton 420.

Save for a few inevitable audiovisual glitches, the production of the show was pretty and smooth. The sets (designed by Christina Tang, CC ’16) weren’t too complicated, but the simplicity of the shapes and color scheme fit the easy-to-follow world of the musical. Especially notable was the set of the sculpture garden, where two-dimensional painted boards beautifully portrayed modern and geometric standing statues. The small, eight-piece pit (conducted by Mark King, BC ’16) stood up to the ensemble and cheekily played its role in creating a 1920’s atmosphere. This show especially relied on more than just the actors, with telephone calls, power outages, and skipping records demanding work from the crew when they interrupted the play-within-the-play.

Overall, CMTS’s production was a success. I didn’t have the tears in my eye that Jason promised, but The Drowsy Chaperone cleverly and entertainingly tackled the topics of fiction and desire. The music performance was crisp and the plot and its acting did more than just tie together production numbers. The actors had to work through two layers of story to reach the audience, and in doing so accurately distanced themselves from reality while striking chords with true concepts. The musical ends with Man In Chair joining the cast and flying off to nowhere. In a more real sense, Man In Chair doesn’t solve his life’s problems through his record, but acknowledges that art can provide some meaning and joy in times of hardship.

Acting! via CMTS Facebook event page