Bethel The­atre Pre­sents “The Drowsy Chap­er­one”

MISHAWAKA—On March 28, 29 and 30, the Bethel Col­lege The­atre De­part­ment will pre­sent “The Drowsy Chap­er­one,” a mu­si­cal writ­ten by Bob Mar­tin and Don  McKel­lar.

The per­for­mances will be in the Ever­est-Rohrer au­di­to­rium at 7:30 each evening, with a mati­nee at 1 p.m. on March 30. Tick­ets are $18 for adults, $12 for stu­dents and se­niors and $10 for chil­dren 12 and un­der. To pur­chase tick­ets, call (574) 807-7080, or visit tick­ets.bethel­col­lege.edu.  

The show is di­rected by Ad­junct Pro­fes­sor De­bra Swer­man. 

“It’s a lit­tle weird,” said Swer­man. “It’s a mu­si­cal within a com­edy.” 

Swer­man said that the play be­gins with the lead char­ac­ter, known as “man in chair,” giv­ing the au­di­ence a mono­logue about how he’s feel­ing a lit­tle blue; how­ever, one thing that cheers him up are mu­si­cals, so he pulls out an al­bum of one of his fa­vorite mu­si­cals, “The Drowsy Chap­er­one,” and lets it play.

“He starts out in mod­ern day, and then he takes us into the world of the mu­si­cal,” said Swer­man. “And so we’re see­ing what he’s see­ing in his mind’s eye... it takes us back to a 1928 mu­si­cal.” 

The mu­si­cal el­e­ment is one of the biggest chal­lenges of the pro­duc­tion. 

“This par­tic­u­lar mu­si­cal has huge dance num­bers,” said Swer­man. “It’s get­ting a whole lot of peo­ple that may not have any ex­pe­ri­ence with dance and teach­ing them the dance steps... this 1920’s style of lift­ing peo­ple, and high-kick­ing dance steps.”

Swer­man said that while most of the play is light-hearted, there is a some­what un­ex­pected theme of sorts re­vealed at the end. 

“A lot of it is just for fun, but yeah, there’s a lit­tle sneaky, in there at the end... I don’t want to give it away, but there’s a mono­logue at the end that makes us walk away go­ing, “Yeah, okay,’” said Swer­man.

Stephen White, a ju­nior the­atre ma­jor, is por­tray­ing the char­ac­ter “man in chair.” 

White said that one of the neat­est scenes is when the mu­si­cal first be­gins to come to life in­side the apart­ment. 

“The walls be­gin to shift, ac­tors be­gin to come down from his bed, there’s ac­tors com­ing out of his re­frig­er­a­tor,” said White. “This world, this mu­si­cal the­atre world... ba­si­cally just comes alive in his head.”

White said one of the chal­lenges of por­tray­ing “man in chair” is por­tray­ing a char­ac­ter who knows some­thing from front to back. 

“He’s ob­sessed with this mu­si­cal the­atre world,” said White. “He knows all these facts and in­for­ma­tion about the ac­tors, about the show, about the time and place, when, what, who, where, why, all of that, he knows all of this.”

How­ever, White loves the high-en­ergy as­pect of the char­ac­ter. 

“He’s like a gos­siper, so he wants to let every­one know the lat­est in­for­ma­tion,” said White. “If you don’t know, you will know by the end of the show... he’s some­body who I feel the au­di­ence will grow to ap­pre­ci­ate.”

White en­cour­aged stu­dents to come out and see the play. 

“Even if the ti­tle does­n’t ring a bell with you, just al­low your­self to try some­thing new,” said White. “It’s a com­edy, so it’s full of laugh­ter, so come to have fun and en­joy your­self.”