Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic 1835 fairytale “The Princess and the Pea,” the over-the-top musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress, with music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Barer, is back on Broadway for the first time in more than a quarter-century, in a new adaptation by Emmy winner Amy Sherman-Palladino, playing a limited engagement at the Hudson Theatre following a record-breaking sold-out run in New York City Center’s Encores! series earlier this year. Since its original Off-Broadway premiere in 1959, the popular show has seen many incarnations on the stage and screen (most notably launching the career of Carol Burnett, who starred as the eponymous princess in the original Off-Broadway and Broadway debuts and subsequent 1964 and ’72 TV versions), with the current production scheduled to transfer to LA in December. Clearly, audiences enjoy the unabashedly goofy scenery chewing as much as the cast relishes doing it, with unbridled gusto.
Under the old-style zany direction of Lear deBessonet, who also helmed the Encores! production, Sutton Foster and Michael Urie reprise their lead roles as the unkempt, undignified, tomboyish Princess Winnifred the Woebegone from “The Swamps of Home,” who arrives covered in mud and leeches (which she hurls at the audience) after swimming across the moat and scaling the wall into the castle (then proclaims she’s really “Shy”), and the sweet, silly, childlike, and innocent Prince Dauntless, who can’t master walking up a few stairs, longs to be married, falls for the quirky “Fred” (Winnifred’s nickname), but obeys the commands of his controlling mother – until he doesn’t. David Patrick Kelly returns as the silent King Sextimus, unable to speak because of a witch’s curse that can’t be broken until “the mouse devours the hawk,” and Ana Gasteyer joins the cast as the hilariously unjust and domineering, aggravating and vain wife, mother, and ruler Queen Aggravain, who proclaims that no one in the kingdom may wed until Dauntless does, then imposes impossible tests on his prospective princess brides to keep her son single and to retain her power, with the aid of The Wizard, here portrayed by Brooks Ashmanskas.
It’s all a fluffy throwback to mid-century schtick and Burnett, filled with caricatural stereotypes, breaks through the fourth wall, mugging and miming, sight gags, physical comedy and effects (by Skylar Fox), and even her signature Tarzan yell, which had the Baby Boomers in the house feeling the nostalgia and laughing with delight, and introduced the kids in the audience to the comic stylings of old Broadway, TV sit-coms, and variety shows of the late Fifties and early Sixties, with their just rewards and happily-ever-after endings.
Among the high-spirited scenes are Sutton and the company dancing faster and faster to the exhausting “Spanish Panic” (choreography by Lorin Latarro), in an attempt by the Queen to knock her out; her extended slapstick routine atop a stack of 20 mattresses upon which she’s unable to fall asleep because of the titular pea placed underneath by order of Aggravain to test her sensitivity (and the surprise revelations after she passes the test and wins the hand of the Prince); and the voiceless King’s pantomimed, and long overdue, “Man to Man Talk” about the birds and bees with the naïve Dauntless.
In addition to the main story, there’s a subplot of the trouble caused by the Queen’s edict for the smart, thoughtful, and pregnant Lady Larken, played by the returning Nikki Renée Daniels, prohibited from marrying her lover Sir Harry – a dimwitted but handsome Knight, portrayed in the current production by Will Chase – who, in a running joke, takes great pride in his shining silver spurs and future son (that might turn out to be a daughter). Also new to the Broadway cast is the engaging Daniel Breaker as The Jester, who witnessed the entire story (though not exactly as it’s being told!), serves as its narrator (in an adaptation that cut the original narrating role of the Minstrel), delivers the Vaudevillian song-and-dance highlight “Very Soft Shoes,” and ultimately proves to be as wise as any Wizard and more so than the Queen. Rounding out the company are Daniel Beeman, Wendi Bergamini, Taylor Marie Daniel, Cicily Daniels, Ben Davis, Oyoyo Joi, Amanda Lamotte, Michael Olaribigbe, Adam Roberts, Jeffrey Schecter, Darius Wright, and Richard Riaz Yoder, all contributing their talents to the group numbers and embracing the overall risible mood of the show.
The cast is backed, in full view upstage, by a sixteen-piece orchestra conducted by music director Annabritt duChateau, perfectly capturing the vintage melodies of Rodgers (daughter of the legendary Broadway composer Richard Rodgers), with orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin, Mary-Mitchell Campbell serving as music supervisor, and clear sound by Kai Harada. A simple linear Pop Art design of a medieval castle with a crenellated wall, flags, painted columns, steps, and the central high four-poster bed (set by David Zinn), planes of colorful lighting (by Justin Townsend), and costumes by Andrea Hood, in an array of bright rainbow hues, with hair, wigs, and make-up by J. Jared Janas, suggest a witty mash-up of 1420 and 1960, in keeping with the era in which the musical is set, and when it first ran, in this fractured fairytale that’s done for the laughs.
Running Time: Approximately two hours and 15 minutes, including an intermission.
Once Upon a Mattress plays through Saturday, November 30, 2024, at the Hudson Theatre, 141 West 44th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $57-389, plus fees), go online.
