Today, it’s a different experience for the playgoers at Music Theatre of Wichita. Usually, when they come to the Century II Theatre for a musical, the show essentially starts many minutes before performance time. The fun begins when producing artistic director Wayne Bryan takes the stage and gives a nifty 15 minute background lecture on what everyone’s going to see.
Not today, though. Bryan’s playing Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone, so during the show, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to tell his audience all about the show they’re seeing. In fact, he’ll spend much of the musical saying many of the same kinds of things he would have said in his usual pre-show speech: Who wrote it, who was in the original cast, et al. Only this time, it’s part of the script.
As soon as the lights come up, the audience applauds – and not because J. Branson’s handsome set is a dead ringer David Gallo’s Broadway original. Wichita is acknowledging the hero who, for the last 22 seasons, has brought quality musical entertainment to a city not usually associated with it.
So when Man in Chair says, “Hello,” the capacity crowd immediately coos “Hello” in return to Bryan. Every audience I’ve seen in four previous visits to Drowsy have stayed silent for a second or two, wondering if they should respond. But Wichitans feel chummily at home with Bryan, so when he follows that with, “How are you?”they just as quickly respond, “Fine!” And fine they are, for they know that Bryan can be counted on to give them a good time.
Man in Chair is as tailor-made for Bryan as a bespoke overcoat. The character appreciates a good musical, and Lord knows Bryan does, too. Go to his home, and you’ll find bookshelves packed with DVDs, videotapes, CDs, LPs, and everything else concerned with musical theater. Three years ago, when I came to MTW to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Bryan told the pre-show crowd that the deluxe DVD edition of the 1954 film offered two distinct movies filmed at different times. Thus, the MTW audience is well aware that Bryan knows his musical theater onions. No one’s better equipped to play the Man who’s passionate about this mythical 1928 Gable-and-Stein musical called The Drowsy Chaperone.
So when Man in Chair asks the crowd if he may play the show’s cast album for them, the sound of applause is titanic. Whatever Bryan wants, Bryan gets -- because his loyal and rapt audience wants to give it to him.
Nevertheless, as we all know, playing a beloved cast album for someone unfamiliar with it can be a dicey and disappointing situation. We’ve all excitedly said to a visitor to our home, “Wait till you hear this!” only to put on a song we love and see bored eyes and a wince of a semi-smile. So even though Bryan is natively impish – he’s Og all-grown-up – he correctly sits in an apprehensive manner while the record plays. Note his shoulders hunched in embarrassment, arms almost ramrod stiff, as well as his hands clasped and situated between his knees.
When Man in Chair admits that the 1928 musical sports “characters are two-dimensional and the plot well-worn,” the audience gives an affectionate laugh. This crowd wants to indulge him, as a type of Lifetime Achievement Award, and because they trust his taste. Besides, a by-the-book old world musical comedy will do just fine, thank you. So they’ll warmly greet the excellent Johnny Stellard as Percy Hyman (as Robert Martin) and the equally proficient Tyler Foy as Cyril Devlin (as George) when they do the tap-dancing sensation “Cold Feet.” Still, as much as the audience applauds, no one claps harder or with greater respect than the Man in Chair himself – and that’s Bryan for you.
There’s a clothing store that likes to advertise, “An educated consumer is our best customer,” and that’s true of theater as well. How superbly Bryan has educated his crowd, show after show after show. So the crowd not only laughs but applauds at every theatrically-oriented joke about cell-phones going off mid-performance and long ladies-rooms’ lines. Bryan’s long-time subscribers have been there and experienced that.
And when Bryan says, “I don’t like intermissions,” they laugh again; they know how much he enjoys being accessible in the lobby at every interval of a show in which he doesn’t star. And wait! Is that hearty masculine laughter I hear? Yes! Even the husbands are enjoying themselves!
More to the point, they’re even willing to laugh after Bryan’s Man in Chair expresses his admiration for Percy Hyman. Even when Bryan adds the naughty bit of pulling his sweater down well below his waist – subtly trying to hide his erection – the Wichita crowd gives him its forbearance.
What’s most moving is that by playing Man, Bryan has a chance to sit on stage and really get to view the fruits of his labors. His ringside seat gives him the chance to scrutinize the people he’s mentored: Kilty Reidy as Underling, Ryan Koss and Aaron Umsted as the gangsters, Emily Mechler as Kitty, and Kevin Munhall as the Super. Many of them will thank him forever for the chance to start their careers here.
Look how Bryan reaches out to Beatrice Stockwell (the superb Tracy Lore) with a frenetic, straight-out arm reminiscent of the picture of the front-row patrons grasping to get to Judy Garland on the backside of the Carnegie Hall album. See his eyes sparkle as he sees Danny Bolero whoop it up as the vainglorious Adolpho. When he comes to the “Bride’s Lament,” Bryan says, “Just ignore the lyrics” with a dismissive wave – one that we can picture him giving to people visiting his home when he’s played them Ankles Aweigh or Share My Lettuce.
How funny Bryan is, jerking his head back and forth and singing “No! No! No!” along with Janet. The audience laughs, but the rest of us understands; how many times have you made dramatic gestures when listing to a favorite song on an original cast album? Yes, long before The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Man in Chair – and Bryan and we -- were talking back to musicals. So when Janet finishes singing the number – and Man in Chair concludes his accompanying gestures – the crowd’s applause is not just for her. Nothing against Andrea Chamberlain, who shines as Janet, but Bryan’s the one they really want to laud and applaud, as is proved by the applause building and she leaves the stage and him on it.
When he mentions the one part of the show that “pisses me off,” the audience gives a shriek of disbelief. In all their lobby encounters with him, they’ve never heard him say anything resembling that. Bryan in the consummate gentleman, and they react with astonishment because they can’t even imagine such a vulgar expression coming from his mouth.
Finally, Bryan has a center stage soliloquy about the perils of love and marriage, and that gets a torrent of applause, too. Sure, a large percentage of marrieds often laugh and applaud any indictment of marriage, for they’ve lived through the horrors he’s describing. But at this performance, this experienced audience knows that this tirade will mark Man in Chair’s climactic moment, and they’ll never have a better chance all night to let Bryan know how much they appreciate his performance. So they do.
One big laugh is left, though, shortly after the power failure in Man in Chair’s apartment. The building’s super comes in to restore the lights, and after he does, the last note of the cast album comes back to life. When the super asks Man in Chair if he likes musicals – and Bryan says no – that may well be the biggest laugh of the night. Of all people!
But The Drowsy Chaperone isn’t all fun-and-games. When Man in Chair has a moment where he confesses to “feeling a little blue myself” and “a little sad,” the audience is suddenly very, very quiet. Now they’re faced with something about which they’ve never thought; does, in fact, Bryan ever get blue or sad? Every time they see him, he always seems so up, happy, and self-actualized. But of course into every life some rain must fall (and, as we all know, in Kansas, tornadoes do too). For a moment, they’re actually starting to worry about him.
Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight. How delighted they are when the 1928 cast takes Man out of his Chair and onto the aeroplane. How they applaud when he waves and says, “Goodbye, everybody!”
Not if they can help it. They want Wayne Bryan with them for as long as they can have him. I’ve seen hundreds of standing ovations – well, who hasn’t? – but I daresay I’ve never seen an audience leap to its feet as quickly as they did when Wayne Bryan entered for his curtain call – not as Man in Chair, but Wayne Bryan himself. Though the audience is supposed to be Man in Chair’s imaginary friends, the crowd at MTW wants Bryan to know that they’re his real friends, too.
You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com
