The Drowsy Chaperone

Record holder Martin faces the music.

“You hear the static?” asks The Drowsy Chaperone’s charmingly shabby narrator, an obsessive show-tune connoisseur referred to as Man in Chair, as he drops the needle on an old record. “To me, that’s the sound of a time machine starting up.” The record in question is the cast recording of a fictitious 1928 musical (also called The Drowsy Chaperone), and for the next 100 minutes, the audience is invited to share the Man’s sentimental journey to a simpler time, when musical theater had no grand aims beyond catchy tunes, broad comedy and the promise of zany escape.

Light as a feather and just as tickling, this postmodern crowd-pleaser has no pretensions to significance. (“That’s just what this show is—fun,” as the Man says.) Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison’s score is a collection of affectionate homages to Jazz Age song forms, performed with flouncy vim by a zippy ensemble, each of whom gets a share of the spotlight. Standouts include the omnicapable Sutton Foster as the show-within-a-show’s young bride, Georgia Engel as a dimly sunny dowager, Danny Burstein as a peacocky Latin lover and Beth Leavel as the dragonish, perpetually soused title character. But it is the warm, fussy Bob Martin—who, with Don McKellar, also co-wrote the clever book—that captures the audience’s hearts as the Man, and gently keeps the show’s needle in its groove. Don’t let that static fool you: The Drowsy Chaperone is the year’s most dynamic new musical so far.—Adam Feldman