Prompt 14: The Drowsy Chaperone

One element that would be different if this were simply the musical-within-the-play The Drowsy Chaperone as opposed to the as-is meta-show, as Dr. Fletcher puts it, is the sense of ambiguity.  With the musical that the Man is listening to, there really is no sense of ambiguity.  The protagonists, Janet and Robert, get married as well as Tottendale and Underling, Aldolpho and the drowsy chaperone, and Fieldzig to Kitty.  Happy ending right?  No more questions?  Correct.  But with the meta-show, it's not that simple.  Who is the Man?  All we know about him is his opinions on theatre from the beginning.  And obviously, he loves The Drowsy Chaperone.  But what else is there?  There was a question that I shared with another classmate about the stage directions.  In the end, the Man is "flown into the flies," which is a technical term used when the set piece is raised above the stage.  What happens to the Man in terms of the meta-show?

Another element that would be treated differently between the two shows is duration.  In the musical, so much time, I would say too much time, is spent on dance numbers, tap breaks, and a lot of other seemingly needless things.  There is also the spit-take scene between Tottendale and Underling that would have taken presumably longer if the Man hadn't skipped through it.  For the meta-show, most of the play is spent with the Man giving his opinions on musical theatre and specifically The Drowsy Chaperone.  There is also the song "Message from a Nightingale," that would have to be in the meta-show and not the musical.