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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > June > 28
Monday, June 28, 2010
Review: ‘The Drowsy Chaperone’
The musical “The Drowsy Chaperone” begins in the dark. A small, male voice explains the prayer he offers every time the theater lights dim. Among his humorous pleas, he hopes every performance will be “just fun”—a story with a few good songs.
The opening bit is amusing, like much of the musical, which opened at Zach Theatre Saturday and runs through August 29.
But the musical, a Broadway hit with music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, pretends that its jokes — often racist ones — have no effect. They do.
This theatrically polished production directed by Nick Demos rehearses decades-old racist and homophobic stereotypes under the guise of critiquing those stereotypes. But the critique is never center stage. Center stage belongs to the largely white cast enacting stereotypes of Asian people, “Latin” men and stupid women. Based on the uproarious laughter from Saturday night’s audience, these stereotypes still register as humorous, not harmful.
The opening voice belongs to a musical fan, named Man in Chair (Martin Burke), sitting in his living room imagining a production of a 1920s musical via a cast album. His fantasy musical, “The Drowsy Chaperone” unfolds amidst Michael Raiford’s gorgeous set as the Man comments on the slim plot — a nearly botched wedding between movie and stage celebrities, Robert Martin (Matt Redden) and Janet Van de Graff (Jill Blackwood). Vaudeville producer Feldzieg (Scotty Roberts) tries to foil the marriage, but Martin and Janet manage that on their own. Instead, Feldzieg’s machinations bring together Janet’s boozy chaperone (Meredith McCall) and Zorro-esque idiot Aldolpho (Jamie Goodwin).
It’s not a compelling story. The Man in the Chair is meant to be the real entertainment.
The made-up musical has its funny moments, particularly when poking fun at musicals. Performed by Wright, Janet’s tour de force, “Show Off,” in which the actress announces she’s done showing off, while engaging in an unending diva turn, is fantastic in its excess. In “As We Stumble Along,” a poke at musicals with a great climatic song that makes no sense in the narrative, McCall’s vodka-drenched chaperone is excellent. Here Man in Chair’s commentary adds depth and honors musical fans’ encyclopedic obsession with the genre. In the rest of the first act, his insistent commentary works like a dinner guest who explains everyone’s jokes rather than letting people enjoy the humor.
The musical’s second act is when the real trouble comes. Man in Chair returns for Act II, puts on the second cast album, and then runs to the restroom. Out fly actors dressed in faux-Chinese costumes. They squint their eyes, suck in their lips and pronounce their “Rs” as “Ws,” while singing with McCall, dressed as a white British teacher. Yes, it’s a parody of “The King and I,” but it’s also yellowface without the face paint.
Man in Chair returns and, in horror, makes a quick quip about those awful racial stereotypes of the past, and then turns to yet another racial stereotype: his Latino maid who doesn’t speak English who always misunderstands his directions. He quickly apologizes for the joke, but the theater has already filled with laughter. The insiders in this musical have clearly been named: those of us liberal enough to know we should apologize for racism, but not progressive enough to stop repeating racist jokes.
Perhaps the saddest outsider role in “The Drowsy Chaperone” belongs to Man in Chair. In the musical’s one earnest turn, the man — whose sexuality is never fully named, but whose queerness is heavily suggested — tells of being a gay man trapped in a straight marriage. For a moment, Burke turns off the gay minstrel clown show, revealing a pained interior. He snaps out of it just in time to see “The Drowsy Chaperone” to its end, imagining a finale filled with four heterosexual marriages. Man in Chair can’t even imagine himself in his own fantasy! Like all the gay clown characters familiar from pop culture (think Jack from “Will and Grace”) Man in Chair is a straight fantasy of gay people: happy, funny and desexualized.
Thankfully Man in Chair does get invited into to a final song. But no jaunty hat and song, nor one-liner critique can undo this musical’s perilous laughter.
‘The Drowsy Chaperone’ continues 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 29 at Zach Theatre. www.zachtheatre.org.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Kirk R. Tuck.
A correction has been appended to this post. The role of Janet Van de Graff is played by Jill Blackwood.
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GFA announces winners to 2010 competition
The Guitar Foundation of America wrapped up its annual convention Sunday night at the Long Center for the Performing Arts with its International Concert Artist Competition concert.
The winner was Johannes Moller of Sweden. Second place was Artyom Dervoed, with Eduardo Costa netting third place and Alexander Milovanov, fourth.
Among the other prizes Moller wins is a 50-concert international tour. Austin audiences take note — that tour will include Austin at some point.
GFA Hall of Fame awards were given to Pepe Romero, Richard Long, Bernard Maillot and John Gilbert.
This year’s convention and competition was hosted by Austin Classical Guitar Society and featured some 60 concerts and events presented in cooperation with several other Austin arts groups including Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera and Austin Chamber Music Center.
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GFA Fest Saturday concert extravaganza
Saturday night at the Long Center, it was a sold-out crowd who enjoyed a stellar concert presented at part of the Guitar Foundation of America’s annual convention this year held in Austin for the first time.
Organized by the Austin Classical Guitar Society, the convention and its attendant concert series capped off Saturday with the A-List: the LA Guitar Quartet and Pepe Romero backed-up by the Austin Symphony Orchestra.
LAGQ treated with ‘Interchange,’ the piece written for them by guitar great Sergio Assad and commissioned by Matthew Dunne of UT-San Antonio and premiered at the Southwest Guitar Festival in 2009. ‘Interchange’ wonderfully reflected the individual personalities of the quartet heading down a musical highway that went through klezmer, samba, flamenco, Brazilain choro, Asian and Middle Eastern grooves.
Romero’s performance of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez was preceeded by a screening of 10-minute clip from the movie ‘Shadows and Light: Joaquin Rodrigo at 90’ that beautifully explained the backstory on Rodrigo’s most famous piece and one of the most well-loved scores in the classical guitar repertoire.
Romero’s 1992 recording of the Rodrigo Concierto is arguably the masterpiece recording of the masterpiece for guitar and orchestra. And on Saturday, backed by the Austin Symphony Orchestra led by Peter Bay, Romero should us why. Romero’s interpretation is haunting, sensitive, piercing, and it drew the audience to its feet for an unbridled standing ovation.
Romero repaid the complement with an encore of Fantasia Cubana, a delightful piece written by his father, full of vibrant color and playful yet virtuosic flourishes. Romero played the Fantasia for an encore at his solo concert earlier in the GFA festival and audiences begged for a reprise. We got it.
