Theater preview | "Drowsy Chaperone" lampoons love for old musicals

When reached by phone in Toronto, Bob Martin was busy buying his toddler a Halloween costume. "Can you call back in a few minutes?" he asked plaintively.

No problem. And in exchange, might Martin mind diverting from the subject at hand (his Tony Award-winning musical "The Drowsy Chaperone," opening Thursday at the 5th Avenue Theatre), to allow us a few minutes of gush over "Slings & Arrows" — a cult-favorite TV miniseries Martin also co-wrote?

That was fine with the 45-year-old actor-writer, who knows how much many of us on this side of the border adored the Canadian "Slings & Arrows," a three-season wonder that interwove Shakespeare plays with the crazed backstage shenanigans at a nonprofit theater modeled on Ontario's Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

"The series is so popular in the States," Martin marveled, after finishing his fatherly duties. "I don't know how they knew me, but people were stopping me in the street in New York to say how much they loved it."

All right, now back to "Drowsy Chaperone" — which isn't chopped liver, either. This recipient of five 2006 Tony Awards has nothing to do with Shakespeare. But both "Drowsy Chaperone" and "Slings & Arrows" are manifestations of Martin's deft, sly gift for showbiz lampoonery — a gift shared by quite a few fellow Canadians with a talent to amuse.

"Drowsy Chaperone's" Tony-winning book won big points for ingenuity, given its unusual framing device. A lonely guy (initially played by Martin) is holed up in his tiny New York City apartment. He starts chatting amiably with the audience about his love of old musicals, and hatred of modern ones ("Please, Elton John, must we continue this charade?").

He confesses his fondness for a madcap 1928 show about a flapper-ish movie star. And the campy tuner magically materializes in his living room as he describes it.

An alum of Toronto's fabled Second City improv troupe (along with Martin Short, John Candy and other comic geniuses), Martin still seems surprised "Drowsy Chaperone" made it to Broadway — let alone to London, and Seattle.

He confirmed the show began as a lark — a 40-minute skit cooked up for Martin and wife Janet Van De Graaff (another Second City vet) as a wedding gift.

"It was a fake musical for my stag party, with all my friends in it," he recalled. "It was really great, so later we took a lot of that material and expanded it into something bigger."

A hit at the 1999 Toronto Fringe Festival, "Drowsy Chaperone" (the title refers to its 1920s show-within-a-show) went on to a proper Toronto theatrical run. Then Martin, co-writer Don McKellar and composer-lyricists Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison reworked it for a Los Angeles stint, which led to its dark-horse Broadway triumph.

In every phase of the musical's development, Martin portrayed that agoraphobic, musicals-adoring narrator — known only as "The Man in the Chair."

He admits "there are definitely elements of me" in that witty, sad fellow — "a very dysfunctional guy, who's only happy when he gets lost in this romantic fantasy of old musicals."

"Drowsy Chaperone" opened many doors for Martin (he's currently writing another musical, "Minsky's," and creating an American TV series about Broadway's backstage antics). But it hasn't been all bliss. During the New York stint, he missed his wife's entire Toronto pregnancy with their son Harrison, now 15 months old. Martin also had kidney-stone surgery during the run.

"In the third season of 'Slings & Arrows,' the director character Jeffrey is at the height of success and suddenly bursts into tears," Martin noted. "I'm not a whiner, and I have a great life I'm very grateful for. But I can understand how someone could be baffled by the difficulties of happiness."

Martin was fortunate, though, to share the musical's success with good pals, thanks to some overlap between the close-knit Toronto comedy folk who worked on "Slings & Arrows" and "Drowsy Chaperone."

McKellar, the musical's co-author, memorably played an obnoxious avant-garde stage director in "Slings & Arrows." And Jonathan Crombie, who is The Man in the Chair at the 5th Avenue, portrayed a predatory playwright in the TV series. (An American TV favorite, Georgia Engel from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," is also in the 5th Avenue cast).

Martin recalled that as he and McKellar were reworking "Drowsy Chaperone," they were filming another "fake musical" for "Slings & Arrows" — a nutty Shakespeare-meets-"Rent" thing called "East Hastings."

So what is it with those wild and crazy Canadians? Why do they do theatrical parody better than just about anybody?

"It is an interesting phenomenon," Martin agreed. "I think it's because we're kind of caught between two cultural giants. We get a lot of British TV and theater, and we get bombarded with American culture, too. So we observe both, and have a love/hate relationship with both. Maybe that makes us good satirists."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com