Carol Burnett is alive and well and not starring in the latest Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress, the fractured fairy tale musical opening tonight that laid the foundation for the funny lady’s towering comic career way back in ’59. Fortunately for Broadway audiences, the contemporary stage has its very own Princess Winnifred who is more than capable to doing the royal succession bit: Sutton Foster.
Foster, whose dazzled in The Music Man, The Drowsy Chaperone, Anything Goes and, well, on and on, is a savvy enough musical comedian to know not to mess with a good thing. Her lovably vulgar Princess of the Swamp pays loving homage to Burnett – even folks who didn’t make it into the Broadway audience back during the Eisenhower Administration might have some fading memories of Burnett’s performance from those early ’60s TV specials.
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Yes, Foster is a winner in this show, occasionally overdoing it but mostly in the zone, and I suspect she’d be the first to give credit where its due: A stage performer as savvy as the woman who costarred with Hugh Jackman in The Music Man knows her Broadway history, and just about every brash, exaggerated and hold-on-for-dear life comic choice made by the charming Foster is a fond look back. There’s more than a little touch of Lucille Ball, too, and a dash of Amy Sedaris and, unless I’m misreading one or two rubber-faced expression, maybe even Martha Raye. Absolutely nothing wrong with borrowing from the best, and Foster has chosen her Guardian Angels with wisdom.
In short, Foster nails this performance, bringing what is, ever has been and always will be a mid-tier musical that has more unnecessary subplots and sing-song padding than an old mattress has feathers. The rest of the cast – Brooks Ashmanskas, David Patrick Kelly, Ana Gasteyer, Daniel Breaker, Will Chase, Nikki Renée Daniels and, especially, Michael Urie – lends loads of support, but this is Foster’s show.
Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea,” with lots of vaudeville sprinkled about by the original creative team – composer Mary Rodgers, lyricist Marshall Barer, and book writers Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Barer – Mattress has been given a good, modernizing scrubbing by Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). A few of the tweaks are obvious newcomers – a funny joke about Brooklyn hipsters stands out – but Sherman-Palladino’s most significant gift to the show seems to be in the placing of Foster’s uncouth swampland princess on equal footing with the oversheltered-but-wising-up Prince Dauntless (a never better Urie). The happy ending Sherman-Palladino delivers is two made-for-each-other lovers standing atop a metaphorical pile of mattresses, together.
This production got its start last winter as part of City Center’s Encores! program, and the stripped down approach shows (and mostlybcharms). David Zinn’s set design leans heavy into the heraldic flags and banners that suggest we’re in the land of Medieval Storybook, as does Andrea Hood’s colorful costumes befitting the royals and courtiers and knights and wizards who scurry around on this side of not one but two filthy moats.
Only Princess Winnifred the Woebegone hailing from the land of the swamps looks hilariously out of place, her filthy rags and ratty bundle of hair – well, not exactly ratty, but no spoilers – in stark contrast to the overall hoity-toitiness of the kingdom. The contrast is all the better when “Fred” and Dauntless the Drab actually hit it off, a sweet romance nicely rendered by Foster and Urie, both of whom make the transfer from the Encores! production.
Not all of the Encores! cast made the Broadway move, without oversize impact except maybe from one. Ana Gasteyer, as Dauntless’ scheming mother of a Queen, delivers a fairly standard plummy-voiced villainess, and the withering archness provided by Encore’s unrivaled Harriet Harris is missed. Others new to their roles – Will Chase as the vain Sir Harry, Daniel Breaker as the kind-heared Jester – join the holdovers (Nikki Renée Daniels, Brooks Ashmanskas, David Patrick Kelly) without missing a beat.
Director Lear DeBessonet does her very best to keep the goings-on humming, but Mattress gives her so, so much less to work with than what she was got from Sondheim’s Into The Woods, another recent Encores!-to-Broadway project that was easily one of the most satisfying bits of alchemy to arise from the long history of that beloved City Centers endeavor. Mattress has, and always will, feel like a sketch or one-act with one essential song (“Shy”) padded with unnecessary characters and sub-par musical interludes, all designed to forestall the show’s 11 O’Clock number, which in this musical has nothing to do with belting a song.
Rather, the big send-’em-home-happy moment arrives with Winnifred’s royal worthiness tested atop that pile of mattresses under which has been placed a tiny pea. Proving the degree of sensitivity indicating the finest of bloodlines, Sutton’s Winnifred tosses and turns and contorts and flips and twists herself into one pretzel after another – maybe there should be an Olympic medal for this. If audience members could hum a bed-ridden gymnastics routine, there’d be more than a few bizarre sights ambling along 44th Street after the show.
Title: Once Upon A Mattress
Venue: Broadway’s Hudson Theater
New Adaptation By: Amy Sherman-Palladino
Music: Mary Rodgers
Lyrics: Marshall Barer
Original Book: Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, Marshall Barer.
Directed By: Lear deBessonet
Cast: Sutton Foster, Michael Urie, Ana Gasteyer, Brooks Ashmanskas, Daniel Breaker, Will Chase, Nikki Renée Daniels, David Patrick Kelly
Running time: 2 hr 15 min (including intermission)