In the glorious days, a star like Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, Alfred Drake, or a favorite of mine, Chita Rivera (whom we just lost), could lift mediocre material to the level of entertainment magic; or they could make memories for us that would last a lifetime when playing material by a dozen first class playwrights and composers. I was one of the lucky ones who was exposed to the magic of those legitimate stage stars that affected me in ways that no television, film, or opera star could ever achieve. I have enormous respect for all the hundreds of performers whose work I’ve enjoyed during the great Golden Age of live theater that lasted for some seventy-five years from the 1920s until the recent past. Now, with the advent of AI and amplification, there’s still a lot of live theater being offered, but it is reaching out to a new audience that seems more interested in qualities other than raw talent and unique personality. There doesn’t seem to be a new generation of writers talented for the musical stage, so each season we now get a slew of revivals of gems from the past. In the case of Once Upon a Mattress, the material here is not flawlessly gemlike; but it does offer a constant flow of lighthearted banter in this Encores! staging by Lear Debessonet.
In the beginning, this musical romp began life as a simple sketch to entertain in a theatrical summer camp called Tamiment. It was developed slowly by composer Mary Rodgers who joined forces with Marshall Barer on lyrics with book writers Jay Thompson and Dean Fuller. The four of them spent months developing it until it began to resemble a proper–if slight–stage musical. Finally, after playing it to a long list of potential producers, it opened off Broadway at the Phoenix on Second Avenue. It had mixed reviews but built audience approval which led to its transfer to Broadway in April, 1959. It managed a 450 performance run due mostly to the growing attention garnered by its young star, Carol Burnett, who was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actress of the 1959 season. The supporting cast in this current production is absolutely smashing with stalwarts like Michael Urie as Prince Dauntless and Harriet Harris as his mother, Queen Aggravain. David Patrick Kelly, Cheyenne Jackson, and others keep the laughs flowing.
But once again, it’s Princess Winnifred as played by the remarkable Sutton Foster, who carries the show over the finish line. It’s astonishing to watch the gifted Sutton Foster who has beautifully played Marian in The Music Man, (Drama League Distinguished Award) Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes (Tony Award), and the lead in Thoroughly Modern Millie (Tony Award) transform herself once again into this goofball of a heroine who makes her entrance soaking wet after swimming the moat that protects the Queen’s castle. She is loose limbed and hilariously flexible, and has a voice that obeys her every command to wrap itself around every lyric.
Andrea Hood’s costume designs have personality, and David Zinn’s scenic designs are spot-on as they slide on and off and up and down seeming to also be having a good time. I attended a matinée designed by management to close this brief run with a “family showing” so the theater seemed chock full of kiddies–some looking two or three years old. A good beginning that will hopefully become for them a life-long habit of theater attendance. I didn’t start till I was twelve, but I am so very happy that I saw that matinée of What a Life in 1939!