This show (allegedly based on the Stroman-and-company original, now with the title curiously reworked), is misguided in every conceivable respect, sometimes offensively so.

On my personal theatrical honor roll, I reserve a special place for directors who rescue the plays of Tennessee Williams. Not Streetcar or Glass Menagerie, those masterpieces don't want for a champion. But the messy, fragmentary late works require a leap of faith. Are they worth it? I think so.

Much of the time, that's a good thing — though, especially in the first act, I had moments where the cast's unrelenting high spirits and overdrive paradoxically tuckered me out.

Some people love musicals for their lavishness, but for me it's often the opposite: Nothing raises the stakes like a few people in an intimate space, creating theater without any extra bells and whistles.

Here's a marvelous play that we hardly ever get to see anymore. Why? First, because it needs a cast of nearly 30.

Among the recent spate of big-musicals-that-make- fun-of-big-musicals (a wily concept that allows us to indulge in bourgeois pleasures while maintaining our ironic distance), The Drowsy Chaperone is the cleverest.

"I've carved out some time," says he, beaming at the little woman like he's God's gift. "Thirty minutes?" she asks, pathetically hopeful. "Ten," he insists, never losing his unctuous smile.

I wouldn't normally begin with the restrooms, but this is a special situation, so let's just say it. They are a dream come true: stall after stall, sink after sink of elegant fixtures, all housed in roomy, bright, accessible quarters. (OK, I only saw the men's rooms, but I have it on good authority that the ladies' — shall we say — lounges are just as swanky.)

What's this? A version of Edward Albee's landmark play — in sign language?