Sutton Foster, attempting her hand at goofy bodily comedy and affecting a rapid-fire comedian patter harking back to early Barbra Streisand, is an plain draw within the Encores! sequence revival of this oft-produced musical comedy, backed by a starry forged of a few of New York’s most dependable stage actors. This consists of two of essentially the most persistently hilarious, Michael Urie as a hapless prince and Harriet Harris as his bullying mom the Queen, whose scenes collectively are priceless.
Foster actually holds her personal as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone, the function that made Carol Burnett a star when the present debuted on Broadway in 1959, subsequently portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker and Jackie Hoffman in New York revivals. The Princess Winnifreds are seemingly additionally eliciting appreciative guffaws proper now in present manufacturing at Conroe Excessive College in Texas, Dunlap Excessive College in Illinois, and the Frances Kelsey Secondary College in Mill Bay, British Columbia.
“As soon as Upon A Mattress” is clearly not an obscure musical. Nonetheless, I rushed to see the Encores live performance model, taking part in at New York Metropolis Heart by means of February 4. It’s the first manufacturing of the present in New York for the reason that 2022 posthumous publication of composer Mary Rodgers’ memoir “Shy,” – the title named after her most memorable music on this, her first musical.
“As soon as Upon A Mattress,” she says within the memoir (co-written with Jesse Inexperienced), is a “Borscht Belt retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s pretty story ‘The Princess and the Pea,’ which tells the story of “an enormous, awkward, loudmouth princess, born to royalty however however a misfit…she has to outwit a useless and icy queen to get what she needs and stay fortunately ever after.
“Story of my life, if solely I’d realized it,” she provides, the beginning of an important paragraph:
“On the time, writing Mattress, I used to be in certainly one of my periodic fortunately ever afters, which, spoiler alert, don’t final lengthy. I used to be twenty-seven, freshly divorced, lastly doing what I wished the best way I wished, even when I used to be at all times frightened of failing. However one factor my life had proven me by then was that failing wasn’t so unhealthy. In any case, it was inevitable, particularly when your father was a god and your mom, nicely, a useless and icy queen.”
Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) was the daughter of Richard Rodgers, and if her first musical incorporates no everlasting earworms like “Oklahoma!” or “Some Enchanted Night,” the tuneful rating is an argument that expertise is inherited. As we be taught in her memoir, Rodgers was a great good friend of Stephen Sondheim; I’ve puzzled whether or not “As soon as Upon A Mattress” in any respect helped to encourage Sondheim’s a lot later “Into The Woods.”
If the older fairy story adaptation hasn’t aged as nicely, it’s price noting that Rodgers wrote neither the libretto nor the lyrics (simply the music) and the Encores manufacturing has gotten a noticeable makeover, with a credit score for “live performance adaptation” by Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of the TV sequence Gilmore Women, Bunheads (which starred Foster) and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Launched by J Harrison Ghee because the Jester (taking up the function as nicely of the Minstrel, which was a separate character in earlier productions), the fairy story begins with Prince Dauntless (Michael Urie) desirous to marry and take over the rule of the dominion, however his mom, with the becoming identify of Queen Aggravain (Harriet Harris) doesn’t wish to quit her energy. So she devises royalty assessments for potential princesses which might be inconceivable to cross.
No person else within the kingdom can marry till Dauntless does, which causes a dilemma for Sir Harry (Cheyenne Jackson) and Woman Larkin (Nikki Renee Daniels) as a result of Larkin discovers she’s pregnant.
When the woman tells the knight she’s with little one, they’ve an trade (courtesy of Sherman-Palladino):
Sir Harry: However I assumed if you happen to considered holy belongings you couldn’t get pregnant.
Woman Larkin: That’s not true.
Sir Harry: And it was a Thursday. You possibly can’t get pregnant on a Thursday
Woman Larkin: God you’re….good-looking.
This secondary couple get two pretty duets, “In A Little Whereas” and “Yesterday I Cherished You.”
Right here they’re singing the primary one in rehearsal:
Sir Harry travels to the swampland within the North to discover a new princess, and brings again the very un-princess-like Princess Winnifred, whom we first see scrambling over the fortress wall, after swimming the moat.
Foster makes a splash with a sequence ofwater-related comedian bits I gained’t spoil – the height of the slapstick within the present, matched solely by her elaborate reveals of discomfort attempting to sleep on the pile of mattresses that relaxation atop a pea.
In its thirtieth anniversary season, Encores! retains to the custom it established from the get-go on placing the music heart stage, actually: The 26-piece (together with seven violinists, two trumpeters, a harpist) is at all times in full view, pushing performers downstage.
However, not like the early concert events within the sequence, it might be onerous to argue that the performing and dancing play second (or eighth) fiddle. Not one of the lead actors learn from the scripts on music stands; they’re absolutely costumed, they and the ensemble are absolutely choreographed. Encores now not sees its major mission as providing a second hearken to long-dormant musicals with nice scores and poor books. One now suspects that the producers are at all times hoping for a Broadway switch, corresponding to occurred, most spectacularly, with “Chicago.” Even formally, as its web page on the Metropolis Heart web site places it, “This sequence of live performance stagings revisits the archives of American musical theater…spotlighting the vocal skills of star-studded ensembles.” It’s onerous to complain when the vocal expertise is so ample, as in “As soon as Upon A Mattress,” and it’s matched by a lot comedian expertise.
Encores! As soon as Upon a Mattress
New York Metropolis Heart by means of February 8
Working time: 2 hours, 20 minutes together with one intermission
Tickets: $45 – $235
Music by Mary Rodgers
Lyrics by Marshall Barer
Guide by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller & Marshall Barer
Live performance Adaptation by Amy Sherman-Palladino
Directed by Lear deBessonet
Scenic designer David Zinn, costume designer Andrea Hood, lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker, sound designer Kai Harada, choreographer Lorin Latarro, music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell
Forged: Sutton Foster as Princess Winnifred, Michael Urie as Prince Dauntless, Nikki Renée Daniels as Woman Larken, J. Harrison Ghee as Jester, Harriet Harris as Queen Aggravain, Cheyenne Jackson as Sir Harry, Francis Jue as Wizard, David Patrick Kelly as King Sextimus the Silent).
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