'DROWSY CHAPERONE' GUARANTEED TO KEEP YOU AWAKE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

BOB MARTIN is a tweedy-looking guy with a wide-open face, a tuft of hair that stands at attention, unastonishing taste in clothes and a smile that skirts the line between ``Wow! Can you believe this?'' and ``Sucker!'' He is, per the program notes of the musical ``The Drowsy Chaperone,'' a successful comedy writer, director and performer in his native Canada.

He is also unusually gifted. ``Chaperone,'' the new musical likely headed for Broadway after its run at the Ahmanson Theatre, is every bit his baby. He is the co-writer along with Don McKeller. How the show would play without him is an ugly prospect to consider. For now, his work - and that of the cast surrounding him - is to savor.

Martin is also ``Chaperone's'' tour guide. He's the unnamed Man in Chair (MIC) looking to chase the blues away by tossing a scratched record on the stereo. He's got this favorite musical called ``The Drowsy Chaperone'' which is his tonic for the blahs. When he plays the record, the actors, music, scenery, costumes, etc. all come pouring into his living room. When he lifts the phonograph needle (remember those?), the action freezes. All of it. Even if there happens to be a plane parked in his living room.

The musical playing out in MIC's apartment is a goofy trifle from 1928 about a starlet looking to marry, a producer terrified of losing his meal ticket to matrimony, a dotty lady of the manor and a couple of bad-punning gangsters disguised as pastry chefs. Its performers include Georgia Engel, Beth Leavel, Jennifer Smith, Danny Burstein and Edward Hibbert, all given plenty of license to ham their way into oblivion. (In this, his major directing debut, Casey Nicholaw, who choreographed Monty Python's ``Spam-a-Lot,'' clearly picked up a few techniques in broad comedy from ``Spam-a-Lot'' director Mike Nichols and the Pythonians.)

Corniness is the point of the exercise. MIC knows his favorite musical is silly just as he knows he's kind of a doofus for loving it so much. As the story plays out, MIC tells us dirt about the actors we're seeing (one who, after his death, was partially consumed by his own poodles) or to slam a given routine for its stupidity. When he gets a little too carried away - which is often - MIC lets slip something maybe a little embarrassing about ... well ... himself.

``The Drowsy Chaperone'' actors, remember, are playing their goofiness straight ahead while MIC is flinging both rose petals and darts at them. And if achieving the balance between valentine and outright send-up looks easy, it's only because Martin - as actor - makes it that way. Given the opportunity to celebrate or sneer, we the audience mostly just laugh and laugh some more. For example, an extended bit involving the spaced-out Mrs. Tottendale (played by Georgia Engel), her servant Underling (Edward Hibbert) and a glass of water is - for all its stupidity - side-splitting. Martin, as wry commentator, makes it that way.

Choice among the cast are Burstein as a Latin lover with an accent calculated to offend, Leavel's grandly dipsomaniacal Chaperone and Broadway ``It'' girl Sutton Foster as the Bride. Afforded a number titled ``Show Off,'' in which she is required to sing, dance, twirl, contort, ventriloquize and perform magic (among other things), the ever-game Foster buzzes through it without a lost breath. She accomplishes this (thanks to a broken wrist suffered in rehearsals) with one-handed cartwheels.

The score, co-written by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, patterned to replicate musicals of the era, goes for upbeat tempos and tap-friendly rhythms. The lyrics are fluffily unmemorable. Or else memorable for their deliberate awfulness (as in ``Groom's Reverie''). Plaudits also to David Gallo's set design, which deftly transforms a rather shabby New York apartment into ``Chaperone's'' villa via a series of rare, fun-house-like touches. Anytime you can make a main entranceway out of a refrigerator, you've got a pixie spirit.

On that, the MIC, bless his lonely, besotted heart, refuses comment. Given his tendency to dream and the magic he conjures, people are probably pouring in and out of his fridge every day of the week.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE - Three and one half stars

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 24.

Tickets: $20 to $90. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Guaranteed not to make an audience drowsy.

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Photo:

Bob Martin is at the center of ``The Drowsy Chaperone,'' at the Ahmanson Theatre.