![]() It get right at the heart of the genre's special magic and its hold on our imagination. The narrator's running commentary is better than any course or book on musical theater. ![]() While director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw and the superb cast cleverly evoke characters and devices from a cornucopia of stock musical characters The Drowsy Chaperone is more than another send-up for theater buffs to play name the allusion and for even those who don't get it all to enjoy. There's even an elevator-like contraption for the entrances and exits of oomph-laden show girl, Janet Van De Graff (Sutton Foster) whose marriage and retirement her Ziegfeldish producer (Lenny Wolpe) tries to circumvent with the expected mistaken identities to delay the foreordained happy ending for all concerned. This being a magic carpet ride, count on designer David Gallo to support Martin and co-writer Don McKellar's conceit with plenty of his own magic: A refrigerator becomes the doorway for the gorgeously dressed, deliriously silly characters to enter Man's apartment and for appropriate set pieces to emerge from walls and drop from the ceiling (including an airplane for the finale). The Marquis stage has been transformed into Man's cluttered and somewhat shabby apartment, his armchair and an old-fashioned record player (you know, the kind with a needle that sometimes gets stuck in the vinyl tracks) tucked into a downstage corner. Once you take your seat and the house lights dim, the show's irresistibly lovable tour guide known as Man in the Chair and played with zip and zest by co-book writer Bob Martin, will take you on an armchair ride back to the colorful Jazz Age via one of his favorite chasing the blues away records of a fictional feel good confection named (what else?) The Drowsy Chaperone. ![]() When you consider the suggestions in the weekly New York Times "Escapes" section, a ticket to Broadway's newest and most old-fashioned yet original feel-good musical, The Drowsy Chaperone is a getting away from reality option sure to give you the biggest, most enjoyable bang for your buck. The times we live in exacerbate the urge to escape from all the stresses and strains that make the real world a place where things indeed often don't work out. Bob Martin and Beth Leavel in The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway
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