The Drowsy Chaperone Response

The Drowsy Chaperone follows an unusual action pattern that separates it from the show-within-the-show world of Drowsy Chaperone. One of the biggest factors in support of this is the heavy irony created by the character of Man. The play opens in darkness, and immediately there is a strong sense of irony as the Man states how he hates waiting in the darkness for plays to begin. He breaks the fourth wall of his show and creates a humorous situation by his heavy ironic comments. This continues throughout the show, as he continues to interrupt the flow of the meta play and break the fourth wall, while the characters within the meta play never break the fourth wall or create any dramatic irony, apart from when the man joins them for the final number of the play, when both worlds seem to combine. The second element that differs greatly between the play and the meta play is the tempo. The play itself sort of meanders along, as the man is just tending to nightly chores and listening to a record, but the play within a play has a much different tempo. It is lively and upbeat and almost whimsical, a stark contrast to the dreary world of the Man in the chair. The meta play is also subject to tempo changes according to how the man feels about certain scenes, or the record player. The record player skips along at one point, and the characters within the meta play are stuck in a single point. During the “intermission,” the man puts on a different a record and the tempo of the meta play stops entirely as a different musical is performed. Yet another tempo shit comes in the resolution of the meta play’s plot, during the scene where Janet asks the Chaperone for honest advice. The Man keeps skipping back to one particular line to reiterate its importance to him, all the while halting the tempo of the meta play. The final instance of tempo alteration of the meta play is when the power goes out, effectively stopping the meta play altogether. This also shifts the tempo of the play itself, because The Man is suddenly lost and trying desperately to return to the meta world of the play within a play. The tempo of both plays become one as the man joins the meta play and sings the big final number.