The Drowsy Chaperone

Ahmanson Theatre
135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.
Through Dec. 24
Tuesday-Friday 8 p.m - Saturday 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.
Sunday 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.
Tickets: $20-90
(213) 628-2772
www.TaperAhmanson.com

Maybe it's the slightly hokey ad campaign. Maybe it's just the intentionally retro title. But I didn't go into the Sunday matinee of The Drowsy Chaperone expecting to discover the most original and fresh (in every delightful sense of that word) musical to come along in ages. In spite of a gorgeous production -- with sumptuous costumes (Gregg Barnes), elaborately ridiculous sets (David Gallo), and a number of full-throated Broadway vets -- this American premiere happily retains the offbeat, highly eccentric and slightly subversive sensibility of the show's Canadian fringe theater roots. That combination of Ahmanson production values and basement-theater daring and originality results in an endlessly inventive, hilarious, and surprisingly moving musical that celebrates the very form it seems to be sending up.

Much of the credit for this accomplishment goes to Bob Martin, one of the writers of the show (with Don McKellar) and its central figure as Man in Chair, our host and narrator for the intermissionless two-hour adventure. After an introduction best left as a surprise, we meet the Man in his hopelessly dreary apartment, where he greets us in cords, cardigan and flannel shirt as he is about to alleviate a "blue" mood by dropping his well-worn LP of The Drowsy Chaperone on the turntable. As the record crackles, the fictional 1920s musical begins to take place in his apartment, with the Man commenting on the characters and the period actors, stopping the record (and the show) to fill us in with tidbits of their private lives and career highs and lows.

The details of the silly show-within-the-show hardly matter. It is the Man's love of The Drowsy Chaperone and everyone connected to it, and the clever and surprising ways in which the larger show draws us into his world that take this production to unexpectedly deep and moving emotional territory.

The cast is uniformly superb. Tony-winner Sutton Foster dazzles as the heroine with impossibly long legs, and Beth Leavel nearly steals every scene as the boozy title character. And it is hard to picture a more insanely inspired pairing than Edward Hibbert and Georgia Engel, as the world-weary butler and his forgetful employer. The songs, by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, salute the period while also providing plenty of laughs, and Casey Nicholaw keeps the madcap machinations moving with crisp direction and appropriately silly choreography.

But in the end, The Drowsy Chaperone isn't about the Drowsy Chaperone at all. It's about one man's love of musical theater and how that man -- our friend by the end of the show -- can be literally uplifted by the simple act of tossing a beloved LP on a turntable. -- Christopher Cappiello

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Geffen Playhouse
10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood
Through Dec. 18
Tuesday-Thursday 7:30 p.m., Friday 8 p.m.
Saturday 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m.
Tickets: $42-69
(310) 258-5454
www.geffenplayhouse.com

The newly renovated Geffen Playhouse introduces its season with a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Gil Cates brings forth a solid showing of Tennessee Williams' play, but overall it lacks the vivacity to make it a truly memorable experience.

Jennifer Mudge stars in the meaty role of Maggie, providing the heart and soul of much of the play. A blond slip of a woman, she successfully embodies the image of a once-sensual debutante with a steel core, whose broken marriage threatens to drain her life force. In her impressively long speech that takes over most of the first act, Mudge has a strong technical grasp of the text, but somehow is missing the subtle mix of desperation, ambition, and iciness that make the character so complex. Williams' words are expressive enough to communicate to the audience what makes cat-like Maggie tick, but the interpretation is done in broad strokes rather than nuances. Jeremy Davidson as her stoically cynical husband Brick provides a strong counterpart to Maggie's effervescence, so that his silence speaks volumes.

The physically imposing figure of John Goodman seems a natural choice for Big Daddy, but there's something about Goodman that just smacks of jolliness, which doesn't always work for this role. He handles the humor quite nicely in the comedic moments, like the lambasting of his wife and sycophantic daughter-in-law. But Goodman (who, at least 12 years too young for the role, is sporting exaggeratedly grayed hair), doesn't exude the larger-than-life vulgarity that characterizes Big Daddy. His most emotional scenes when he learns of his cancer never reach the expected high pitch of anger and desperation.

Understudy Jane Galloway Heitz as Big Mama is also missing that same kind of new-money gaudiness, and generally portrays the character as being breathlessly anxious, but it seems like her appearance was a last-minute replacement and she gamely took on the role. It is Kirstin Potter as the extremely fertile, social-climbing Mae who is the most noticeable, tossing in the right amounts of snappy humor in even the heaviest moments. Her position alongside Matthew Glave as Gooper makes for a surprisingly interesting, dynamic, as her greed overshadows his, transforming him from a ruthless businessman to more of a hapless sitcom husband.

The entire play takes place in one room during a sweltering Southern evening, and John Arnone's set design of the open, airy bedroom inside a rambling estate is almost a character in itself. Several doors along the room keep opening and closing onto a veranda, where curious eyes are always spying and making it impossible to keep dirty secrets hidden for very long. -- Sarika Chawla