ONCE UPON A MATTRESS w/ Backstage Babble

Summary

Broadway Breakdown Podcast Summary

Episode: ONCE UPON A MATTRESS w/ Backstage Babble
Host: Matt Koplik
Guest: Charles Kirsch
Date: December 1, 2022

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Overview

This episode of Broadway Breakdown, part of the "Big Move" series, dives into the origins, history, and legacy of Once Upon a Mattress, a classic Golden Age musical that began Off Broadway and made its way to the Great White Way. Host Matt Koplik teams up with teen theatre podcaster Charles Kirsch (Backstage Babble) for an opinionated, fun, and in-depth discussion packed with historical anecdotes, sharp analyses, and a healthy serving of irreverent Broadway banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How They Got Into Theatre

• Charles (02:26): Fell in love with Broadway after seeing the revival of On the Town at age 7, which sparked a deep interest in classic musicals.
• Matt (06:42): Saw the 1996 SJP Broadway revival of Mattress without previous knowledge but was drawn in by its humor and music.

2. First Encounters with Once Upon a Mattress

• Charles saw the Off-Broadway Transport Group revival with Jackie Hoffman and Lip Synca, describing it as "fun, campy, smart, and funny" (03:22).
• Humor Evolution: Charles notes the shift he saw from traditional Golden Age comedy to a more “Charles Busch” camp style in newer takes (04:39).
• Classic Golden Age: Both agree the show marks the end of Broadway's Golden Age (ending around 1964, with Mattress debuting in 1959).

3. Plot Overview & Tone

• Charles (09:24):

  "Once Upon a Mattress is about a sort of buffoonish prince named Prince Dauntless who lives in a kingdom with his very overbearing mother, Queen Agravain..."

• The show satirizes fairy tales by making its heroine, Winifred, the opposite of a “delicate princess”—loud, brassy, and irrepressible (13:18).
• The plot centers on the Queen preventing her son’s marriage to maintain power, leading to impossible “princess tests” until Winifred upends tradition.
• The musical balances broad burlesque humor with a gentle push against gender norms for its time.

4. Iconic Performers and Productions

• Carol Burnett originated Winifred, setting a bar for comic energy that later stars struggled to match; SJP and Tracy Ullman were specifically discussed (15:09).
• The 1996 SJP revival is called “ill-fated”! Discussion includes why SJP, despite effort, was not an ideal fit for the role (06:42; 53:33).
• Winifred’s big song “Shy”: Not initially written for the show but added to showcase Burnett’s talents (16:50).

5. History & Creation at Camp Tamiment

• Conceived at “an adult summer camp,” the show was the result of needing a large cast for camp staffers and was originally a vehicle for Nancy Walker (17:26–24:44).
• A producer shakeup led to Burnett’s casting when Abbott insisted on “discovering a star” (30:34).

6. Casting, Race, and Broadway Realities

• Jane White as Queen Agravain: The painful story of the Black actress being forced to lighten her skin to satisfy George Abbott’s casting norms is openly recounted (32:35–34:14).

  “I'm too black for the white performers, and I'm too white for the black performers. No one will hire me right now.” (35:15)

• Mary Rodgers’ memoir and the documentary Beyond the Golden Age are cited for more on this topic.

7. The Golden Age & Tony Awards Context

• The 1959–1960 Tony season included Gypsy, Fiorello!, The Sound of Music, and Once Upon a Mattress—all with compelling personal/familial entanglements (41:49).
• Mary Rodgers’ position as Richard Rodgers’ daughter and as an early major female Broadway composer is explored, including her own imposter syndrome (42:36; 106:32).

8. The Show’s Style: Sitcom Roots & Sprawling Structure

• The multitude of subplots and principal roles originates from the needs of the camp production, giving the show a sitcom-like feel (23:40).
• Frequent digressions about which comedic style and performer fits the lead roles—classic versus camp, straightforward versus broad.

9. Camp Staple & Commercial Success

• The show’s structure (“a part for everyone”) made it a staple of summer camps and schools, becoming “the most produced musical in America” for a time (40:38).

10. Songs & Stand-Out Moments

• “Shy” praised as one of the all-time great “I Am” songs—difficult to perform well despite seeming easy (14:51–15:47).
• Other songs debated: “In a Little While” and “Very Soft Shoes” come in for truthful critique about their impact on pacing (44:52, 88:59).
• “Man to Man Talk”: Noted for both its humor and real emotional resonance, particularly for queer audience members (97:00).
• The finale’s tight, satisfying resolution earns special praise (59:44, 61:07).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [05:23] Matt:

  "Charles is a genius and his line delivery is so good… 'You’ve slipped into my life as easily as vermouth into a glass of gin. Quickly and just a bit too smooth.' Absolute genius."

• [15:47] Matt:

  "A truly great performance—you do not see the work, and it should come off very natural. And it takes so much work to make something look so effortless."

• [34:10] Charles (Jane White's casting):

  "Mary Rogers really liked Jane White, and so she suggested that she go downtown to this photographer who would use makeup to lighten her skin and make her look essentially like she was … and George Abbott initially refused to see her again... but after seeing the way that her skin was lightened, he relented and said, yes, she is the best person."

• [53:33] Matt (On SJP as Winifred):

  "Sarah Jessica Parker is just pure charm… she is not a broad comedienne. She’s not a clown. And so a lot of things that Carol Burnett would do that’s just sort of like, oh, yuck, Sarah Parker would play in the same demeanor as we eventually would know her from with Carrie Bradshaw."

• [56:15] Charles (On the 1996 revival's rehearsal woes):

  "Liza Gennaro … said that sort of everything about it was wrongheaded. The director Gerald Gutierrez was not someone who was great at directing comedy… and that Sarah Jessica Parker, although she worked very hard and was very nice, didn’t really have enough star presence and also wasn’t properly cast."

• [79:51] Matt (On Dauntless & Winifred):

  “I never buy that he’s in love with her. Or if he is, I’m just like, okay, your emotional maturity is that of a grasshopper… I think all you can really do with Dauntless is just play the well-meaningness of it and hope that the audience likes you. A male Sarah Jessica Parker, if you will.”

• [91:07] Charles (On editing the show):

  “Maybe the sequence where she is, like, physically rolling and tossing around on the bed could stand to be a little bit shorter… it did remind me a little bit of the eating scene in Hello Dolly—in that you sort of feel like it could go on forever.”

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Noteworthy Segment Timestamps

• Getting into theatre/gateway shows: 02:11–02:49
• Charles describes the plot of Mattress: 09:24–13:18
• Personal/camp stories; show’s structure: 23:40–28:36
• Production history, Camp Tamiment, Nancy Walker, Carol Burnett: 17:26–34:14
• Jane White’s casting, racial politics: 32:35–34:14
• Deep dive on “Shy,” Winifred’s songs: 14:51–17:02
• Revival analysis (SJP, 1996): 53:29–58:50
• Memorable jokes and burlesque style: 49:45–54:55
• Editing, the show’s ending: 59:44–61:07, 91:07–92:45
• "Man to Man Talk" – emotionally charged comedic highlight: 97:00–100:16
• Dream casting discussion: 64:15–69:53
• Revival/revision wish list & modern Broadway context: 95:17–96:43
• Mary Rodgers—her memoir, her self-image: 106:32–107:16
• Games: Six Degrees of Sally Murphy/Janine Tesori: 118:53–124:47

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Final Thoughts & Legacy

Why hasn’t Mattress returned to Broadway?
While lauded for its fun, accessibility, and star-making potential, Once Upon a Mattress is described as a show that is “pleasant” but rarely “exceptional.” Its sprawling, sitcom-like structure and broad comedy require expert handling and a comic genius (Burnett) up front—subsequent versions have struggled to recapture the magic. The guest and host agree that intelligent revisions and bold new casting could revive its fortunes, but that the musical’s heart and humor remain special, especially for community, school, and summer camp audiences.

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Dream Casting and Revival Talk

• Top Winifred picks: Bonnie Milligan, Annaleigh Ashford
• Top Agravaine picks: Victoria Clark, Jennifer Simard, Christine Ebersole, Patti LuPone, Harvey Fierstein
• Direction hopes: Casey Nicholaw, Susan Stroman, Christopher Ashley

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For Fans of Theatre History

If you love backstage stories, production lore, and sharp-witted analysis, this episode—full of deep cuts, salty humor, and sincerity—delivers the goods for Broadway obsessives and curious newcomers alike.

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To hear more of Charles Kirsch, check out his Backstage Babble podcast. For more rants, deep dives, and explicit fun, subscribe to Matt Koplik’s Broadway Breakdown.

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End on Fade Out, Fade In—a nod to Carol Burnett and the Golden Age roots of Broadway madness.

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(End of summary)

Transcript

[A]

Sam. Hello all theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called the Big Move.

[B]

And it is covering shows that were.

[A]

So successful off Broadway, they just had to transfer to the Great White Way and try some luck over there. I am your host, Matt Koblick, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is a literal child. So I am going to be on my best foul mouth behavior. I will. This might be the only episode of the History of Broadway Breakdown that doesn't have an explicit tag next to it. He has his own podcast called Backstage Babble. He is quite young, but he's extraordinarily knowledgeable. He reminds me of me four years ago when I was his age. Please welcome to the podcast Charles Kirsch. Hi, Charles.

[B]

Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's. I love your podcast on. I'm very happy to be here.

[A]

Thank you very much. I cannot control which episodes of the podcast you listen to, Charles, but I can control what words I don't say today in front of you. So I'm gonna try to work on that. But I want to apologize to your parents now for possibly corrupting you. To the awfulness of the world and my crazy, crazy brain. No, Charles, how old are you exactly at this point in time?

[B]

I'm 15 years old now.

[A]

Okay. Oh, you're not that innocent. I. But when I was your age, I saw life and Pillow Man. So you're. You're. You're basically at this point.

[B]

Right. I don't think I would be up for seeing the Pillow Man.

[A]

You're not up for the Pillow Man? That's not your. That's not your cup of tea?

[B]

No. No. But, yeah.

[A]

How did you get into theater? What was your sort of gateway? And also. Apologies, everyone, if you hear any crunching, I am indeed eating. Uh, once again, this is Broadway Breakdown, and sometimes we do ASMR with my eating. But, Charles, how did you get into theater? How. What. What was your gateway?

[B]

I got into theater seeing the revival of on the town in 2014 when I was seven years old at that point and I had seen other shows before that. It. It wasn't my first Broadway show, but it was the one that made me fall in love and want to learn as much as I can, as much as I could about the golden age of Broadway, which that show is from, and arguably Once Upon a Mattresses Font is from, too.

[A]

I wouldn't say. Arguably, it's very much part of the golden age, which. And that is indeed the musical we're talking about today, is it not? Right?

[B]

It is. It is.

[A]

Yeah. It's not really a spoiler if it's in the title, but, yeah, Once Upon a Mattress, definitely Golden Age. I think Golden Age kind of goes until 64. The idea is around Fiddler Mame is when it ended, but mattress is 59. So, yeah, we're still. We're still deep in there. What is your history with Once Upon a Mattress? How did you know about it? How'd you get into it? Have you ever done it before? Have you seen it before?

[B]

I saw the Off Broadway revival they did at, I believe, the Transport Group with Jackie Hoffman and Lip Synca, and I fell in love with it there because that was such a fun and campy production and very smart and funny. And I have learned more about it doing research for this. For this episode. And I've gotten the chance to watch the 1960s Carol Burnett TV version. And I knew the cast album beforehand, and I knew that production, but now I feel like I know a lot more about it.

[A]

How. How was the Transport production? What was that like? I didn't see that.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I actually liked it a lot. I think one of the great things about Once Upon An Actress is that it can be funny with so many different types of performers in the two leads. Jackie Hoffman is, of course, much older than Carol Burnett was when she did it and even older than Tracy Ullman was when she did it. But. But she made it funny in a different way, and it sort of introduced me to almost like a new style of humor that I hadn't seen as much theater that fell into before. So that's part of the reason I have an attachment to it.

[A]

Well, so when you talk about the humor, what do you mean, like humor? What kind of theatrical humor were you used to before? You saw Once I had Pound a Mattress. And then how did that shift for you after seeing Jackie Hoffman and Lipsynca?

[B]

Right. Well, I was used to a more sort of straightforward, less kind of campy humor. But that. I was saying that introduced me to the Charles Bush style of. Of comedy more, rather than the straight, more straightforward, typically Golden Age style that I would say even the original production falls a little bit more into that, whereas doing it with Jackie Hoffman Lip Synca becomes a different kind of experience.

[A]

Absolutely. Do you enjoy Charles Bush?

[B]

Yes, I do. I know Charles Bush pretty well personally as well, and. And I Love to see his place whenever I can.

[A]

I'm assuming you've seen at least one of his films.

[B]

Yes, I actually haven't. I haven't seen the two films that.

[A]

You have not seen. Die Mommy, Die.

[B]

No, I haven't, but I'm eager to.

[A]

So you absolutely should. I'm literally looking at my DVD of it right now. It's. Charles is a genius and his line delivery is so good. He has a of my all time favorite line deliveries, which is how do. Who are you? Tony Parker? You've slipped into my life as easily as vermouth into a glass of gin. Quickly and just a bit too smooth. Absolute genius. That's a very astute observation. To go from Lipsenka to Charles Bush. You are a very smart 15 year old Charles Kirsch.

[B]

Thank you. Thank you. That's a great impression. It sounded just like it.

[A]

Thank you. Do your contemporaries, do the other children of the world know who Charles Bush is? Do they know who Lipsynca is?

[B]

Not any that I've met yet, but. But I know that there are some in probably in other states, even in other countries who, who share the same interests.

[A]

Are you trying to teach your, your contemporaries about them? Do you like go to school every day and you're like, so guys, I need you to start reading the Taylor the Allergist's Wife and everyone's like, fine, I guess.

[B]

Right, right. I don't do as much of that. I have found one or two friends who share the same interest of seeing theater but not quite as, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Not quite as much classic musicals, but old school stuff. Yeah, right, right, yeah.

[A]

There are certain words that now people think of as sort of derogatory words because of, you know, I guess, societal connotations. I don't look at old as a slur. Young are aged. It is fine, it is a fact. But it's a matter of just what you do with your time. My grandmother is 98, about her turn, 99. She's currently living more life than most 30 year olds I know. So. But. And she'd be the first person to say I'm old. So with Once Upon a Mattress. Let me now tell the listeners my story with this show. I saw the now considered ill fated 1996 production with one Sarah Jessica Parker. I knew nothing about the show. I think this, at this point, this might have been like my fifth or sixth Broadway show. And I did not really know who she was and I had seen her in First Wives Club because For some reason, I saw that movie in theaters at the age of five and I really loved it. I was six. I didn't know any better. And I just remember really loving the music, the story. I thought it was very funny. I got the cast album, I listened to it still, sometimes I've got a nostalgic connection to it, even though with age and more experience and more exposure to Carol Burnett and other versions of the show, I can recognize what makes Sarah Jessica Parker not right for the role and we'll discuss that further. But I do have a connection. I think it's a very well arranged cast recording and SJP definitely gives it the old college tries. You cannot blame a girl for giving it her all. And her all is not bad. It's just not the right thing fit, which we've seen before in the past. I think sometimes it's a little, it's different. Sometimes it's not just good or bad, sometimes it's good but not appropriate. Or it's, you know, bad but in the right space and it's a very trick. Those are very tricky waters to navigate. So. And then I'm pretty sure I didn't really see any other versions of Once Upon a Mattress till I was a teenager when the ABC TV movie came out. And it gets done at summer camps all the time. So of course I saw it at Everyone have a sip of your beverage Staged Romantic Performing Arts center. And I haven't seen it since. It hasn't been on Broadway since sjp. There was just the Transport production. There's always been talk of someone coming to do it on Broadway and it never materializes and I, I used to wonder why. But I will say upon revisiting the show, much as I think it's very delightful, I can understand why there hasn't been a another Broadway revival, but we'll get into that as we discuss the material a bit more. Charles, for those who don't know Once Upon a Mattress for the uncultured of the podcast, what is Once Upon a Mattress? Who is she? What's she about?

[B]

I would say Once Upon Actress is about a sort of buffoonish prince named Prince Dauntless who lives in a kingdom with his very overbearing mother, Queen Agravain, and his father the king, who's been rendered mute by a spell that gets broken at the end. Maybe that's a spoiler alert. I'm not sure, but spoiler alert for.

[A]

A 60 plus year old musical, everybody.

[B]

Right, Right. And Queen Agravaine, his mother is leading the search to find him a princess, find him someone to marry. And they keep rejecting candidates as she subjects them to a series of basically impossible tests. I know at the beginning we see them questioning a candidate for the job who. I can't remember the exact relationship, but it's something like a blacksmith's sister's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Middle name something.

[A]

Yeah. They're quizzing her on intellect and history and she aces everything until they get to the. They, they do one more question. She aces everything. The queen's like, one more and she pulls like this really random card out. And it's. It depends on which version of this. There are two versions of the script and the one I like the most is, I think the original, which is what you're referring to, which is when they, they tell the tale of like a knight who slayed us such and such. And they said like, what is the name of the sister in law of the blacksmith who made the sword? And everyone's like, right, excuse me. It's, it's, it's like Paul Revere on his horse. The British are coming. The British are coming. And it's like, okay, so what was the name of the nephew of the man who owned the stable that was rented out to the man who then sold the horse to Paul Revere? It's like six degrees of separation that no one would ever know.

[B]

Although actually the princess does almost get it right. I remember she says Ada and it's Ida or something like that, at least in the, in the TV version.

[A]

And so the TV version, they give her a little more dignity, I think. I think in the stage version she fully blows it. And yeah, the. Re. The revival, I want to say it was something along the lines of like, it might have been like a math problem. I can't remember what. But yeah, usually on stage it's just like she can't get it at all. So I'm glad for national broadcast, they're like, let's give her a little bit of dignity. Let's ever get close to it.

[B]

Right, right. And so that is essentially the overarching plot of the show. Then Princess Winifred shows up, putting her hands and climbing over the castle wall, having swam the moat, which there are a lot of references to.

[A]

They love to talk about how she swam the moat. But how, how did we get Princess Winifred? Who found her?

[B]

We get her from Prince Harry. Is Harry.

[A]

Sir Harry. Sir Harry.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because there's a rule in the kingdom. What's the rule in the kingdom?

[B]

The rule in the kingdom is that none of the other maidens can get married until Prince Dauntless finds a wife.

[A]

And that proves a problem for Sir Harry and Lady Larkin, because they have a bun in the oven, and that's a big no. No. So they got to find a princess soon.

[B]

Yes. So they can get married and not have a kid out of wedlock. And there's some discussion, I know, in some of the versions of Lady Larkin maybe running away. But then, of course, Sir Harry doesn't want her to, and so he offers to go and find a princess and. And he finds Winifred, and they subject her similarly to a lot of tests. Finally, of course, the test that everyone knows is the princess and the pea, which she passes. She can't fall asleep. And once they find out she passes it and she's finally qualified to become his princess, and everything sort of returns to happiness. Then we find out that they've sort of rigged the test by putting a lot more sharp and uncomfortable objects underneath the mattresses than just the pee. But then at the very final moment of the show, they take away all the sharp objects except for the pea. And she still can't fall asleep until they take that away. So it's really like she would have passed even if they hadn't rigged it.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's fun. The whole point of Winifred, and then we'll do a whole dissertation on her, is, you know, they. They open the show with this very light ballad. Many moons ago. Right. And there's the. There's the theme of the show, which is a princess is a delicate thing. You know, we all think of princesses as, you know, Snow White, Cinderella. The whole point of Winifred, circa 1959. So, you know, we're coming back into the Disney princess stuff. I think, like, that's the year that Sleeping Beauty was coming out, is she shows up. Her Carol Burnett is and all. And she's loud, she's messy, she swam the moat. She's not very graceful. But she claims, you know, to be a princess, a tried and true princess. And so they test her on her sensitivity. That's the. That's the test that the queen decides to do for Winifred, is her sensitivity. So they do the whole mattress thing. And. Yeah, the fact that she still passes once the. Once everything's taken out, but there's still a P there proves that she truly is a genuine princess, and it challenges our norms. That's what this show does all the time. Very deep show.

[B]

Very deep show of Course, you could say ahead of its time.

[A]

Yeah, ahead of its time. Before its time, of its time. It's everywhere and nowhere all at once. It's everything everywhere all at once.

[B]

Right.

[A]

What is your favorite song in this show?

[B]

My favorite song in this show. I know this isn't the most creative answer, but it's probably shy. I will say one thing about shy, which is, of course, Winifred's big I Am song at the beginning of the show. And I think one of the best I Am songs in the sort of musical theater canon. 1. Do you agree? Do you think?

[A]

I was gonna say?

[B]

Oh, yeah. And one of the interesting things is when I watched the Carol Burnett version, what stuck out to me was, of course, how funny it was. But it made me think, this song sort of performs itself, and the joke is very much in the lyrics, and it can always be done well. So I was expecting when I saw Sarah Jessica Parker and then Tracy Ullman, that they would do it equally well because of how good the song is. But, in fact, that's really not true. Carol Burnett just makes it look very easy, and it is a harder song to pull off than it seems when you're watching her do it. But that is, of course, the talent of a great actress like she is, is to make everything look easy.

[A]

Well, a truly great performance, you do not see the work, and it should come off very natural. And it takes so much work to make something look so effortless. Carol Burnett very naturally had, you know, this big, big voice, something that Sarah just. Parker never really had. Sara Sparker has a very pleasant voice. She hadn't really. She. She went into how to Succeed in Business for, like, a second with Matthew Broderick, but she hadn't, like, led a musical. Musical probably since Annie. Yeah. So she wasn't, like, really at the top of her musical theater game. And so, you know, you really just need, like, the big, big voice. Like, you would need a Bonnie Milligan. You would need a Sutton Foster, someone with a really brassy belt. Because the whole thing was shy musically. And it's so interesting like that that's such the big number of the show that so many people love, because it's the one song that actually wasn't written for the show. It was added. It was written. And then as they were writing the show, they're like, oh, that song we have shy. We should put that in there. Did you. Did you know that?

[B]

I didn't know that.

[A]

Have you started to read Mary Rogers's memoir shy?

[B]

Yes, I have. I have Read Mary Rogers Memorial. I guess I forgot that that detail. Is that where that came from?

[A]

That's where I. That's where I found the information. I. I have. I've currently put that book on pause just because I've had to do a lot of other stuff.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

But I made sure that I read through the Once Upon a Mattress section for information for this podcast because I am a researcher. But, I mean, the. Do you know where the show originated? Where they. Where they started writing it?

[B]

Yes, they started at Camp Tament. I think that's how you say it. Which was this camp that a lot of musical theater writers went to. I know it's in Act One. It's. It was sort of a breeding ground for a lot of writers, including Mary Rogers and Marshall Bearer, who. Who wrote it there.

[A]

Exactly. A lot of other talented writers were there. Bach and Harnick, I think, met there. And then a lot of choreographers and actors. And the way that the writing sort of went was. It was. It was an adult summer camp, essentially, and it was done in cycles of, I think maybe two weeks. Like one or two weeks was. They're. They would re. They would recycle every, like, one to two weeks, new adult cappers. And there was always a review that had to be done at the end of every week. And it was sketches and songs, whatever, but it always had to be original stuff. And sometimes they went well, sometimes they didn't. And then by the end of the. The summer, I believe there was like, best of. There was a best of presentation and then sometimes an original musical. And Bearer had had success, I believe, already with a musical version of. Yeah, he had a. He had a really big success the previous summer writing a musical comedy version of the Emperor's New Clothes. And he wanted to do the same thing with Princess and the Pea, but do it as sort of like a burlesque vehicle for Nancy Walker. Nancy Walker is a name, I'm assuming you know, Mr. Golden Age.

[B]

Yes, yes. I love Nancy or I Love Joe Ramy. That's one of my favorite shows.

[A]

Of course, you would go to do Re Mi and not on the Town. You just had to go the alternate route, didn't you, Charles?

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

Well, so who is Nancy Walker? Tell the children.

[B]

Nancy Walker is a great comedy musical theater actress. She was in Doremi. She was in High Button Shoes. Is that right?

[A]

I think Best Foot Forward is the one.

[B]

There was a show called Look Mine Dancing that she was into and Doremi. And then most people know her from being Rhoda's mother on Rhoda and on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. So she, she's a great comedian.

[A]

She's the original I Can Cook too from on the Town. She's also for my fellow adult homosexuals out there, she is Sophia Petrulo's sister on Golden Girls, I think. Yeah, sister, sister. Childhood friend, one of the two, but I'm pretty sure it's Sister. She's very, very funny woman. And she was, I wouldn't say she was at the height of her fame, she was sort of in a lull between highs because she had done on the Town, which made her very well known and she had done a whole string of other things that were solid hits, if not like huge hits. And it was this, this ended up being, I think the same year as Dory Miriam. You might have been the year. The next year. And that sort of, I think during. It was the following year. No, it absolutely was the following year. Because the year of Once Upon a Mattress, the Tonys were sounding music, Fiorella, Once Upon a Mattress, Take Me along and a little known musical called Gypsy. That Tony season is actually really incredible when you think about the best musical nominees and we'll talk about why with the optics of who wrote all these musicals. Because it's all very mixed together in terms of family, friends, enemies and lovers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But so Mary Rogers, daughter of Richard Rogers, ever heard of him? People he might have written a musical. I like. She, she went to Tanaman. Yeah, it's called Tanneman because she was trying to cut her teeth as a composer. She'd gotten a lot of TV work. She was sort of always getting booking jobs doing this, these one off specials and writing sort of songs that no one cared about and making a little bit of money doing children's albums or whatever. And she was going through a divorce and so needed someplace to go, someplace to escape. So she brought her kids and know, spent the whole summer writing and where she met Marshall Bearer, who she was very much in love with. Unfortunately, Marshall was of the homosexual persuasion. Didn't stop him from trying to woo her anyway. And when she realized that he was homosexual and he tried to marry her, she was like, marshall, you're gay. And he's like, so. And she's like, I can't. She's like, I can't marry a gay guy a second time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The first one didn't end well, as it did not. And I believe even her father, when she brought it up to her father, her father's like, why Would you do that again? He's like this, he's like, stop doing this yourself. He, she will say her father was not the best of fathers, but when it came to the big stuff, like, you know, don't marry a man who's going to make you miserable, he was, he was right and very good at it. But so because they couldn't, they wanted Nancy Walker to do this idea of the Princess and the Pea. The idea was sort of if they could maybe workshop it at the camp, they could pitch it to Nancy Walker's representation of having her take it to Broadway. And I don't know what exactly what happened at first with the camp stuff, because that's who they wanted. Maybe because it was. Oh, maybe because it was like tenement. Her representation was like, she's not going out to some adult summer camp to do a musical. She does Broadway or nothing. So they kind of had to pull it all together last minute with the talent that they had. And, you know, the part of reason why there's so many roles and like subplots in Once Upon a Mattress is because they had to include like nine principal roles for the, for the staff comedians and like, okay, so we got the princess, we got the prince, let's get him an overbearing mother. We've, we need a king. And the actor we have who plays the king is really good mind, but he's, he's a very good, like, clown. But he can't really memorize a lot of lines. So I don't know, let's make him a mute. And we got a dancer, so let's make him a minstrel. And, and we need a, we need a female. So Larkin and Harry, like, all. There's so many plots in Once Upon a Mattress and they all get resolved pretty quickly. It doesn't feel that way because it's a two hour musical until you realize, like, we spend five minutes on each plot line every 10 to 15 minutes. So you look back, you're like, oh, the lady Larkin. Sir Harry plotline is really just 15 minutes. The minstrel stuff is 15 minutes. Winifred and Daunless, that's about 25. That's our musical.

[B]

There are many ways in which it feels like a sitcom, and that is definitely one of them. The idea of like the A, B and C plots.

[A]

Yeah, it's, it's very, it is very situation comedy, which is. That was sort of the whole point of the show was they were like, let's take this fairy tale everyone knows and everyone thinks is, you know, Lofty and beautiful and let's just make it absurd. And so it's very broad humor. And as I mentioned, Shy was written before they ever wrote Once Upon a Mattress. It was a song that they wrote, then Marshall and Mary wrote for the, like, weekly reviews, and it got denied. Everyone was like, no, this song's no good. And when they wrote Princess and the Pea, it wasn't included in the camp version either, because the actress they had playing Winifred wasn't a singer. She was a dancer and a comedian. So everyone else sang but Winifred. And then. And it was called Princess and the Pea at the time. But the reception was so good that they got some Broadway producers came up to sort of check it out, and the only people who bit were the Eckharts. Do you know who the Eckharts were?

[B]

Yes. Famous costume designers turned producers and scenic designers as well.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. I think this was their first show as producers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I remember they had had success at that point as designers. Their big break as Broadway designers was with the Golden Apple, which is a musical we will cover on this podcast soon. I think I'm recording that tomorrow, actually. I should probably check my schedule. I. I've got, like, four recordings coming up and I don't know which one is which, so I should probably learn so I can brush up on that show. But, yeah, the Eckhart's husband and wife team, they were the only ones who came up and then also, like, followed through on wanting to do it. There was another producer who wanted it, and he, like, gave them an exclusive contract and. Which they stupidly signed. But when the Eckharts came on, he was like, oh. He's like, oh, I have no money or connections. Go with the Eckharts. And so they did. And the Eckharts were able to bring on George Abbott because they had worked with him, I think, on what was the show they worked on with him before, because they would eventually work with him on Fiorello, but I feel like they did another show with him before this, and I can't remember why it was. And basically George Abbott said to them, I don't like this show. He's like, but I don't have anything going on right now. And if you can finish writing this show, he's like, he gave them a timeline. I don't know. Do you remember this from the memoir?

[B]

Yes, I do. He gave them a very specific timeline and said, if you can fit it into, like, the three months that I have free, then I'll do it. And so they decided to write it in sort of a crazily fast amount of time and got Broadway. So I think it was worth it.

[A]

Yeah, it was the whole. The whole journey to Broadway is crazy pants when you think about it. Because, yeah, Abbott was like, I go. It's like the Poconos are somewhere. He's like, I go upstate every summer for the whole summer because. And I leave in mid May or like end of May. It's like. So that means we have a month of rehearsals, a month to cast it, and a month of pre production. So this thing needs to be done by like March 1st, like end of February. And it was like January 2nd or something. Like, oh. So they wrote the whole thing. They brought on Dean Fuller to help them and Jay Thompson to help them with the book. And they brought back in Shy because they said, you know, we need our leading lady to have a big old number. So they brought in Shy. They wrote a whole bunch of other stuff again, a lot of Winifred stuff. The songs that were kept from the first version, the opening Many Moons Ago, the Minstrel, the Jester and I. Which is a fun song because you have the minstrel and the jester and then the king who can't speak. So every time they have to, anytime they refer to him in a lyric and he is, you know, there's a beat that's silent for him. Sometimes it happens on a rhyme. So you have an idea of what the line is supposed to be. Even if they're not singing it. It's very clever. Song of Love, which is the I'm in love with a Girl Named Fred, which is a song that Mary Rogers hated and thought didn't work until they finally performed it in front of the audience. And she was like, oh, I guess I'm stupid.

[B]

And.

[A]

They make they. Yes, it needed to be a full length musical by early March, and so it could be open by mid May so he could go to the Catskills. And the Eckharts were able to convince enough investors to invest in the show because George Abbott was coming on. And they're like, oh, and by the way, we've got Richard Rogers's daughter writing the music. And, you know, sometimes apples don't fall far from the tree. And they also were able to capitalize it at about 100,000 and end up only needing 90,000. So they return 10 to their investors. And the Eckharts also designed the show very cheaply. And then they were in need of a theater. And the way they were able to get do you know why this is in my series, Charles? Why this is considered Off Broadway to Broadway. Do you know what theater they opened at originally?

[B]

Yes, I believe they opened at the. Was it the Orpheum? No, the, sorry, the Phoenix. Phoenix Theater.

[A]

Yes. It went through many a name, many a name. But yes, the Orpheum is Little shop. Much, much smaller theater. The Phoenix was a truly Broadway sized Off Broadway theater. Because this was at a time when the rules of exactly what constituted an Off Broadway and on Broadway theater changed throughout the 50s and 60s. By the time we got to the early 60s, which is also why man of La Mancha is not considered an Off Broadway to Broadway transfer. The rule became seat capacity. And so with the Phoenix eventually I think became. It was called the Eden. Starting in the mid-60s they could only use like half the theater if they wanted to keep their Off Broadway contracts. So it's this 1400 seat theater that they could. Even if it was a. People were, you know, clamoring for tickets. They could only sell five or six hundred. And that continued, I'm pretty sure up until Greece and in the early 70s possibly. No, I take that back. I think with Whorehouse in The end of 70s was when they finally were able to use the whole theater again. But for point is this for mattress, they were able to use the whole theater. 12 to 1400 seat theater. They had just started doing annual seasons, you know, like Lincoln center or Playwrights Horizons. And they basically had, they had all of the summer empty. Cause theatrical seasons don't usually go through the summer. Some do, most don't. And the Eckharts were able to convince the Phoenix, like you have space, you've got nothing going on from May through October we are here willing to pay you rent, let us use your theater. So they did. And wouldn't you know it, the show was successful. Now do you know why it ended up being Carol Burnett and not Nancy Walker?

[B]

Was it that they decided she was like too old? Was she. Sorry.

[A]

So it was, it was George Abbott's decision. Basically he decided as they went into pre production and started to cast it.

[B]

He right wanted to discover a star.

[A]

And yeah, he wanted to discover a star and he, and he just didn't want to deal with a big personality. And he also thought she was at that point was wrong for it. Probably thought she was too old as well. And it was the only time in all of the pre production of Once Upon a Mattress that there was a full blown fight because Nancy Walker was a friend of Marshall Bearer. It was written for her it was promised to her. She was so ready to do it. And Marshall Bearer was ready to quit. And George Abbott was like, you don't understand. You have. I know you wrote this thing, dear boy, but I am George Abbott. I have power. I have the power. Now the ladies give up faithful living. And so, yes, they discovered Carol Burnett. I don't know how they got her. She was starting to make a name for herself on TV on the Gary Moore show, but she wasn't really famous yet. She actually started doing double duty when she got Once Upon a Mattress. She would film Gary Moore during the day, do Once Upon a Mattress at night, famously. There's a story that she fell asleep on one of the mattresses one night because she was just so exhausted. And they loved her voice. They thought she wasn't really a singer singer. She was just loud. But she was a brilliant comedian. But they also thought she was too pretty. So they told her when she came in to audition for George Abbott to wear her ugliest outfit and wear no makeup, and she got the job. There is another story. It's not. This one's not a cute one, right?

[B]

This is.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I'm guessing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Do you want to tell this story, Charles? Tell. Tell the children what happened with this poor woman and how she got cast and how it's all terrible.

[B]

Jane White, who was African American and the daughter of Walter White, who ran the naacp, came in to audition for the role of Queen Agravaine in Once upon an Actress. George Abbott saw her and said, I don't believe that even a fictional land would have an African American queen. And the. And Mary Rogers really liked Shane White. And so she suggested that she go downtown to this photographer who would use makeup to lighten her skin and make her look essentially like she was and come back like that and re audition for George Abbott. And she had obviously some qualms about this, considering who her father was, considering just her whole culture that they were essentially asking her to give up. But eventually she decided to do it. She went downtown, got the makeup, came back uptown. George Abbott initially refused to see her again because he said, I think I was right. We can't have an African American queen. But after seeing the way that her skin was lightened, he sort of relented and said, yes, she is the best person, and if she can do, we can have her be in the show. So that's the sort of ugly story that I know I saw first in the documentary beyond the Golden Age, Rick's interesting documentary where he has Interviews with Jane White and Carol Burnett about this process.

[A]

Oh, I did not know that that was covered in beyond the golden age. I have to figure it out now.

[B]

The sequel. The sequel that they did on pbs. And so that's. Yeah, that's essentially the story of how Jane White came to be clean. Agravane.

[A]

Yeah. And then went on to do it two more times for both of the televised versions.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. This was. This was a big get for her, and she was able to do a lot of TV afterwards. But Mary Rogers tells this really sad story when they're in la, I think, about to shoot Once Upon a Mattress the second time. And she's asking Jane, like, oh, what are you gonna do after this? And Jane just, like, broke down into tears, and she said, I'm too black for the white performers, and I'm too white for the black performers. No one will hire me right now. And, you know, this show, which was a great success for her and did lead to more work, didn't lead to the kind of work she wanted to do, and it didn't lead to more work for a very long period of time. And it's a shame because she is so good in the role. She's got this amazing voice, amazing diction, and really nails the kind of weird balance of aggravane. Because Agravain, because of sort of the style of humor of Once Upon a Mattress, it is very easy to call this show, like, slightly sexist because of just sort of a lot of the tropes that it adheres to the female characters. In fairness to the writers, they do the same stereotypical tropes to the male characters as well. If the women are either shrews or docile, the men are all just bumbling idiots. And that's just sort of the nature of burlesque comedy. But for Agravain, because she is the oldest female part in the. In the show and has the most power, it is very easy to lean into the negative connotations that people. That a lot of people might have for an older woman in power of, you know, oh, she's shrill. Oh, she's negative. She's mean. She's a. She's, you know, controlling. And janewhi is just so good at just making her austere and very. What's we're looking for, very earnest in her convictions. Her convictions are bad. She. She. Because the queen does not want her son to marry. And that's something that's brought up all the time when Donald is like, I don't think you want me to marry Mom? And she. Something I know very much about. She keeps. She just talks up a storm all the time and keeps on saying, of course I want you to marry. Of course I want you to marry. I want. I want you to marry the right woman. But we always see every time something could possibly make Dauntless happy and possibly become king, she won't have it. Not because she doesn't love her son, but because she wants to remain in power. And yeah, it's very easy to just make that part awful. And Jane does a really wonderful job with it. I would have loved to have seen what Lipsynca had done with it. I'm sure, you know, Lipsynca channeled that same energy of just like Grand Dame.

[B]

Austereness, which made it very fun. I actually think the problem with Carol Burnett's take on that role in the 2005 version is that it's almost a little bit too Ms. Hannigan esque. It's some of her line readings I feel like could definitely have come from either character. It's. It's almost a little bit too low class seeming, if that makes sense. She doesn't have the same like regal bearing that she would have that much power over her son. Whereas with Jane White, sort of the second she comes on stage, you just see that. You see her taking control of everything around her.

[A]

Sensitivity, sensitivity.

[B]

I'm just loaded with that.

[A]

In this one word is the epitome of the aristocrat. Sensitive soul and sensitive stomach, sensitive hands and feet. This is the blessing also the curse of being a true elite common people. You like, you need almost someone who's had like Shakespearean experience to play this part because she has to take herself so seriously. There's. And, and all these roles are different flavors and they kind of all have to balance each other out because not everyone can be a clown. You need to have some semblance of the world of, you know, the Renaissance or maybe medieval times. Whatever it is, it's. Yeah, you need, you need that balance. And Queen Agravaine is definitely a role where it has to be straightforward. There's comedy to it, but it is definitely not low brow comedy. But yes, that is the unfortunate history with Once Upon a Mattress with Jane White. With a Jane White of it all. I was looking up some of the reviews for the show. It got mostly positive reviews, ironically.

[B]

The.

[A]

Not ironically, but the. The people who got the best responses were Mary Rogers for her music and Carol Burnett. Cal Burnett makes a whole lot of sense and it is A fun score. But I know at the time of the writing Mary Rogers was felt like by the entire team was sort of the weak link. The one who couldn't really keep up with the how fast everyone else was churning out the work. They had to write the show very quickly. She would often have to difficulty figuring out the right melody or a tune. And George Abbott, when they, once they got into rehearsals and they started teching the show and he would need new lines on the fly, they couldn't come up with it fast enough. So he would just come up with something. And when the show finally opened the reviews were like, well, Carol Burnett's a star. And they went, and the music is actually really strong. Mary Rogers has her own unique voice. And everyone involved was like, are you kidding me? What about us? This? We, we were the ones who came up with it. We wrote the script and the lyrics and they're like, I don't know what to tell you kids. It' it's Marianne, it's Carol. And it wasn't originally planned to go to Broadway. I think if they had their druthers they would have just stayed at the Phoenix forever. But where it was a very popular ticket. But the Phoenix eventually needed to kick them out because their season was going to start and they were able to move to the St. James Theater and officially be a Broadway production where they became Tony eligible. And then they transferred quite a few more times. Charles, did you know this?

[B]

I did. It's a very interesting story how that could even happen that they transfer so many times without going totally bankrupt.

[A]

Yeah, I mean they, they turned like a decent profit by the time they closed. But it wasn't, I mean it wasn't like a huge money making hit. The money really came in with the TV specials and then just from amateur productions because for a time for like a solid 20 years, it was like the most produced musical in America. Yeah, like schools everywhere would do it, camps everywhere would do it, community theaters. Because it is a relatively safe musical, it's a pleasant musical, it's a story everybody knows. And it's got a dozen principal roles so everyone gets a moment to shine. All the things that they had to write out of necessity for this piece ended up being to its advantage later on down the road. And as we mentioned, it was nominated for the Tony for best musical opposite Gypsy and Fiorello and Sound of Music and Take Me Along, Take Me along doesn't really matter so much. But Gypsy was important because Mary was best friends with Stephen Sondheim, was Frenemies with Arthur Lawrence. Her father Richard Rogers wrote Sound of Music, and then her former boyfriend was once engaged to Hal Prince produced Fiorello. That also was co written by Bach and Harnick, who she knew she was friends with.

[B]

Didn't it? Actually, didn't the book mention that she dated Sheldon Harnick at one point?

[A]

I think she did, yeah.

[B]

It may have been after Fiorello.

[A]

And Once upon an Actress, that woman dated everybody. And. And. And on top of that, Julie Stein made a major pass at her when she was getting divorced. So we're just like that ballroom. The night of the Tony Awards, Mary Rogers must have just looked around and been like, half of this room is filled with people I love. Half of this room is filled with people I hope die in a ditch. And so she's like, I'm just gonna drink. I have to imagine. I really wish she had talked about the night of the Tony Awards, but I don't think she does, considering how candid she is about everything else in her life. I would have loved to have heard her thoughts about being up against her father for Best Musical.

[B]

Yeah. There's one story in there that stuck out to me about the song she played for her father.

[A]

Yeah. When they were working on Once Upon a Mattress. I don't remember exactly what song it was, but she did play him a song and basically he was like, why did you put the bridge there? And she was like, I don't know. I thought it sounded nice. He was like, I wouldn't have done that. And she's like, cool. I'm never playing you a song of mine ever again. I'm in love with a girl named Fred. She dances with such grace.

[B]

You are bound to sing her praises.

[A]

Till you're purple in the face.

[B]

Bravo. Bravo. Bravissimo.

[A]

Bravo.

[B]

Bravo.

[A]

Oh, I don't know if you know this. Pat Carroll was originally going to be signed as the original Princess Winifred before Carol Burnett. Did you know that?

[B]

I didn't know that, no.

[A]

Do we know who Pat Carroll was? What she most famous was most famous for?

[B]

Most famous for being Ursula and. Right. The tentacles.

[A]

Yes. In the Little Mermaid, a. A movie my listeners might know I like a little bit. Although I believe, no, she didn't do. She did not do one of the TV versions of Once Upon a Mattress. She did one of the TV versions of Cinderella. That's a different fairy tale, right? Yeah. In my. I don't know why. In my mind I was like, I don't know. I feel like Pat Carroll played that Played Mattress on TV at one point, but she didn't. She did Cinderella. Someone who did do the first Once Upon a Mattress on tv, that. That makes me very happy. Is Shani Wallace was the Lady Larkin in the 1960s Once Upon a Mattress. Those of you who are big movie musical fans will know Shani Wallace as Nancy. One of my favorite performances in a movie musical. Ever so shy. Favorite song. What is. Do you have a least favorite song in this show, Charles?

[B]

A least favorite song? I definitely do, actually, now that I'm thinking about it. It's a song that I think they were wise to actually cut from the 1960s TV version. But you can find it in the 2005 movie, which is the ballad that Lady Larkin and Sir Harry sing right at the very beginning when he's discussing. I'm forgetting the name of it at the moment, but he's discussing how he'll go out and.

[A]

Oh, is the In a Little While song.

[B]

Yes, yes, that's the one. I mean, I think the show is definitely at its best when it's funny. Even some of the ballad moments for Winifred in the show are not as strong. They tend to fall a little more on the generic side of things. Less inventive than the comedy.

[A]

Yeah, there's not a lot of earnestness in this show. And when they try to touch on it, it's not very successful, though. I mean, honestly, the Larkin Harry stuff is my least favorite stuff in this show. And although I don't. I don't mind that first song, it's cute enough. I think the best Larkin Harry moment is when she tells him that she's pregnant.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because the way they set up that joke is great because it's all. It's all innuendo. It's the 50s, so it's got to be innuendo. And in the 60s version, they changed it that they got married in secret, not that they're about to have a baby out of wedlock. And then in the 70s version where Bernadette Peters is Lady Lurkin, I believe they go back to she's pregnant. And the way they set that up is, you know, when Harry says, we'll find a princess, if not in a couple of months, I'll go and find one myself. She's like, so we don't have a lot of time for that. And he's like, why? And he goes, well, do you know remember that day we did the picnic and the fair and the jousting? Yeah. And. And you and I went off alone and we Sat on the hill, huh? And we went and watched the sunset. Huh? Well, I'm gonna have a baby. And it's. They don't say anything outright. It's all very wonderful. And then she just drops the bomb. And it's really. It's really funny, and I really appreciate it. And. But after that, Larkin I don't think gets a single laugh ever again. She is, I don't want to say, a thankless role. She's, you know, she's fine. I. There's a cute bit where she meets Winifred for the first time and doesn't know that Winifred is the princess and thinks that she's, like the new scullery maid. But after that, like, you know, Larkin is mostly just a killjoy. She's crying all the time. She's hormonal. She wants to run away. She doesn't want to run away. And she's got everyone, including Winifred, constantly telling her, that's Sir Harry. He loves you so much. I think you should just, you know, shut your woman mouth and. And stop complaining and just be with Harry. And I'm like, listen, this woman is growing a baby. She has a right to speak her mind, okay? The show doesn't love it when women speak their minds. It's always like, why don't you. Why don't you shut your woman mouth and just enjoy your lot? Because, I mean, would we say that Winifred is considered outspoken or Winifred is just sort of unassuming? Do you know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah, I do know what you mean. Actually, it's. It's easy to think of her as outspoken when on first viewing, but now that you bring it up, it's not really that she says anything that's against the sort of policy of the kingdom or anything really bad about any of the members of the kingdom. It's just that she behaves differently than they're used to. So, yeah, I'd say she's not that outspoken.

[A]

Yeah. It's. It's not like she sees injustice and she goes, this will not stand. I am Winifred. She's. Yeah, it's more like, as you said, it's the cultural shock of who she is and where she comes from, from what they know. And she will say the wrong thing, not because she wants to challenge anybody, but because she just doesn't know. And it's what also makes her so likable, because anytime she offends, it's never intentional. And that sort of. I want to say, it's the beauty of the humor of the show. It's what makes the beginning, the first half of the show funny. And then they kind of keep going back to that. Well, and it doesn't always work out so well, in my opinion. But yeah, like, for a show that's all about, like, defying conventional norms, the one thing that it definitely adheres to is these women and their opinions. Must we let them? And that is why, though I'm painfully shy, I am insane to know which sir, you, sir, I sir, and who, sir, where sir, and when, sir, I couldn't be 10, sir. So let's get this done and get on with the fun. Man. I am one man. The ladies one man Show Queen Agravaine. Considering the fact that she's supposed to be such a. Not parasite, but, like, you know, just a depleter of fun. A killjoy is not the right term. A depleter of fun. I think she gets a lot of really great laughs and she. One of them is when she tells Dawnless, like, I don't want you to feel bad for a second that your father and I don't get along and never have and never will.

[B]

Right? And when she says that thing about, like, your father is a, like stupid, angry, etc, etc, ma', am, but I want you to respect him. That's one of my favorite lines.

[A]

So good. He's. He's. He's awful, he's evil, he's stupid, he's blah, blah, blah. But he's your father and I want you to respect him. Like, she's. It's what it is is. It's like, how familiar are you with Jewish mother guilt? Charles Kirsch.

[B]

I am familiar with it. I won't say in my own home, but I'm familiar with the trope of.

[A]

I've read of these. Of these things, as I love my mother very dearly, as anyone who listened to the Torch Song trilogy episode will attest. Yes, I love her very dearly. Say what?

[B]

That was a great episode. I listened to it.

[A]

Oh, thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. She. I love her very dearly. She is very good at the Jewish Mother Guild. And the hilarious thing about her is that she doesn't usually know that that's what she's. I have to sort of point it after, but it's the, like, oh, it's okay. I'll just, you know, I'll do this on my own. Even though I weigh five pounds and I can't lift more than half a pound of flour, it's fine. I'll. I'll. I'll repaint the room and it's fine. You know, I'm. I'm broken and bruised and bloodied, but it's fine. I want you to be happy. I want you to go have fun. And it's that, but with the regal austereness of a queen. It's, you know, it's. Again, it's that borscht belt humor of the, like. Oh, it's. It's the passive aggressiveness of the not saying what you mean, wanting to get what you. Trying to get what you want through guilt. And the audience laughs because we all recognize, we've all seen it before, and it's not just mothers or mothers in law, it's anybody. But it's mostly attributed to mothers.

[B]

Right. And there is some. I think there's definitely a Jewish flavor throughout the whole show. I think Sarah Jessica Parker uses an almost like stereotypically Jewish voice a little bit, or at least that's what I picked up from the clip of Shy. Do you think?

[A]

Well, I don't. Is Sarah just like a Parker Jewish? I don't think she is. No.

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

Yeah, I think she's trying to be like Brooklyn Y, which, I mean, obviously the lines get crossed with that, you know, of what's Brooklyn and what's Jewish. But, yeah, it seems like she's trying to be. She's like maybe trying to channel her inner Dorothy Loudon and. And find some sort of Brooklynite sound. But for the most part, from what I recall, she did. And you can sort of see a little bit in the bootleg and when you listen to the cast recording, I mean, Sarah Jessica Parker is just pure charm. Right. If she had the singing voice in another production at that time, she would have been a really lovely Lady Larkin, because she probably would have been able to find laughs from just being earnest. But she's not like a broad comedienne. She's not a clown. And so a lot of things that Carol Burnett would do that's just sort of like, oh, yuck. Sarah Parker would play in the same demeanor as we eventually would know her from with Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City. And, yeah, Sarah Parker's humor comes from finding the humor out of earnestness, not the clownishness. And you can see that in First Wives Club. She's like the most clownish she ever is is in Hocus Pocus. But even then she's just mostly playing Ditzy very wholeheartedly. Like, she's not really doing weird faces like Kathy Najimi is. She's just, you know, bouncing up and down dead man's toe. Dead man's toe. Have you seen First Wives Club, Charles?

[B]

I have seen First Wives Club. I haven't seen Hocus Pocus, but I'm.

[A]

Not a hocus pocus person. I unfortunately am a adult homosexual man who's friends with many other homosexuals. And so When Hocus Pocus 2 came out, I was invited to quite a few viewing parties. So I saw that movie more times than I wanted to, including the first Hocus Pocus because some of these viewing parties were double features. I'm not a hocus pocus person, but I will say it gave me more appreciation for Sandra Parker. But if you watch her in First Wives Club, which I still think is her best performance to date, she is not camping it up. She's just playing an absurd person very realistically. And it's, it's, it's the specificity, it's the lack of commentary that makes it so good. And with Once Upon a Mattress, you do need to have a bit of commentary because it's not like this is, this is not, you know, like Will and Grace or Try like Veep, which is, you know, finding the humanity of the absurd. This is just absurd from start to finish. This is the Carol Burnett Show. This is Laughing and snl. And so you need that mentality, which is why sjp, try hard as she did, and pleasant enough as she is in the role, was not successful. And Mary Rogers is very blunt about it in her book. She's like, when she. They realized once they, once Carol left the show, and that's partly why they ended up closing, is because the week after Carol left, their ticket sales plummeted and they're like, well, we'll just close up shop now. Back in the days when Broadway shows would announce closing on Friday for Sunday and they realized after the show was done how hard of a role Winifred is to cast. Yeah, because you need the big voice, you need a strong comedian. She's got to be likable. And she said Sarah Sugar Parker had one of those things. And what she meant was Sarah Parker is very likable.

[B]

Right. One of the people that I've interviewed for backstage Babel was Liza Gennaro, who's the daughter of a famous choreographer, Peter Gennaro. But she also choreographed that revival with Sarah Jessica Parker. And she was saying that sort of everything about it was wrong headed. That the director, Gerald Gutierrez, I think was not a Very funny director or not, someone who was great at directing comedy, that it wasn't really her kind of show because it's too unnaturalistic. And that Sarah Jessica Parker, although she worked very hard and was very nice, didn't really have enough star presence and also wasn't properly cast. So. Yeah, that was an interesting insight.

[A]

Yeah. Everything I've heard about that revival is just that it was a nightmare from the moment it began to the moment it ended, and that Gerald Gutierrez really just was so wrong for it. And unfortunately, when the. What's the term word? Like when the head is rotted or something like that, like with like a fish, there's something about, like when the head is poisonous, the head is rotted. Something like that. It all comes from. It trickles down to everything else. So when your director is wrong for it and bad and setting a bad vibe for the rehearsal room, no one's going to do good work. Even if they're. Even if it was possible for them to come around the fact that they're miscast.

[B]

There's actually one thing that surprised me was in the video that you sent me to help prepare. That's the bootleg of the Sarah Jessica Parker version. If you go down to the comments, one of the first comments I saw was actually from Lewis Cleo, who played Prince Dauntless, saying that production was a very hard time. Our director was a tyrant. And it's a little bit fun to look back on it, but at the same time, it was not a good experience. So that. I thought that was interesting that he would say that so publicly.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Well, I think it probably helps that it's, you know, 26 years later, right. Gerald Gutierrez, he might. He might be dead. I don't. Is he? Yeah. Okay, so he's dead now, so he doesn't have to worry about that. But I mean, this. I mean, it also harmed Gerald Gutierrez's career for a while because he was sort of considered this master of revivals. He had done all these amazing revivals in the 90s. He did the two piano most happy Fella. He did Delicate Balance for Lincoln Center Theater. He did another revival. He did the Heiress for Lincoln Center Theater. And everybody was like, this guy really knows how to, like, bring shows back. And so with Once Upon a Mattress, I think everyone was hoping he would work the same magic. But it's. It's like. It's like having Bartlett Cher do Once Upon a Mattress. Like, Bartlett Cher can do revivals. Not every revival. He. He needs to. He can only really do shows that require sort of a more light. I don't say dry, but slightly dry touch. So people, when the. When the bad, bad, bad revival of carousel happened in 2018, everyone's like, oh, this needed Bartlett Chair. I'm like, Bartlett share does not do sexuality. Bartlett Chair does polite interest in each other. Like Barlow Chair is really good at the, like, coyly looking at each other from across the room. He is not good at the grabbing you and kissing and same thing. Like, you would not. Even though people are like, Barlow Sher is such a great golden age musical director. I'm like, you would not ever have him do Once Upon a Mattress.

[B]

Yeah, definitely not. I actually wonder, who do you think would be a good director if they were to do this now? Maybe Casey Nicholaw or.

[A]

Yeah, Casey would do a good job with it. Sorry. Now I'm just in my head of revival of Once Upon a Master starring Kelly o'. Hara.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Her beautiful soprano trying to sing shy. I've always been sure Casey would be good. Stroman would do a good job with it, I think. Really? Who's a good comedian? Ellis is very hit and miss for me. And so I'm gonna think about this for a second. And while I think about this, I want you to tell the listeners something you really love about this show and why.

[B]

There are actually a lot of things I really love about this show. I would say the main one is the ending. I think that there were a few moments in the show where it lost me a little bit. It lost my interest, especially, as I was saying, with some of the ballads and less funny moments. But I think that the end makes the whole thing feel so right and, like, it's been an extremely cohesive thing. I think there's always that expression about, like, if you leave them feel. If you leave them with something good, it can, like, make an audience think that the whole show was good, even if it wasn't. And I think that's definitely some of what's at play here. I really like the thing of them having pulled this trick. So it's a slight twist on the happy ending that we were expecting, but then we also are not made to feel like the whole thing was a lying. She didn't deserve to be the princess because they go back and show that even the pee would have been enough. So I think it's very sweet because it shows how they helped her, but it also shows how she really is a princess. And I like that little joke where they say a princess is a delicate thing at the End, the ensemble is singing, and then she starts snoring very loudly on the bed without the pee in it. So I think that's a really nice way to sum up the fun of the show, the point of the show, and bring the main characters to a good resolution. So I think that is actually my favorite part is the ending.

[A]

That's. That's a great one. It is a very perfect button. And I think Andrew Rannells talked about this with Hairspray when he. When he replaced in Hairspray. Jack o' Brien would come in every couple of months and give notes, and he would say, like, if you're. If you think you're having an off night, if you don't think the audience is with you, is like, just work really hard to make. You can't stop the beat as good as possible. Because that number is almost foolproof. And if you just give it your all, it'll send the audience out on such a high that they will forgive you for the rest of the show. And it's true when, When a show. If a show starts well and ends well, people will forget about the things in the middle that they maybe liked a little less because they're left with the excitement of when a show begins and the excitement of when it ends. And I don't think Once Upon a Mattress starts the most excitingly. I mean, many Moons Ago is meant to sort of be how you would expect a fairy tale production to begin. And then we go into opening for a Princess, which is actually one of my favorite songs. I like the very jazziness of it, and I actually really love the 90s arrangement of it. It's just so. It's just so fun. I like the overlapping they do on the. Why, why, why, why must every princess get the bird? It's just. It's so fun. I was thinking Christopher Ashley, I think, would do a really good job with this show. And my reasoning might seem a little wild to you. Charles, are you ready for this? Yes. 100. I'll say. Someone listens to the pod because someone knows that I love Diana the music musical. I love it for all the wrong reasons. So I was at a birthday party last night and someone brought it up and, oh, no, it's because I had seen Kimberly Akimbo, which I will do as a. As a bonus episode for this series. And I, I bought some merch for it from it because I, I would just. I'm so in love with that show. And someone asked, oh, are you a merch queen? I was like, no, the last show I brought I bought Merch for was Diana. And that was just because it was like second to last show. I bought as much as I could because, like, this, this stuff will never be around ever again. I gotta. I gotta buy whatever I can. And someone's like, oh, my God, Diana. And I go, that show is a masterpiece of a disaster. It is category four brilliance of just everything is insane and everything is bonkers. And I wouldn't change a second of it. But because of that, you want a director who's willing to kind of go for broke that way and just try everything. And for something as absurd as Once Upon a Mattress, that actually is the right mentality and works for that. So I would like to see what he would do. And I also think, despite everything with Diana, he's overall very good at casting the original company. Diana is strong. His casting in the original Come From Away Company is really good. I mean, that Rocky Horror show with just Tony winners and nominees through the roof is great. I think he's really good at casting. So I'd like to see what he would do with Once Upon a Mattress. Who would you. Who are some of your dream Winifreds?

[B]

Yeah. Well, I was actually thinking about this because I was anticipating that maybe you would ask this question. So actually, the main one, the first one I thought of was someone you mentioned earlier on, which was Bonnie Milligan. I think that would be fun. And that actually led me to think, I don't think it would be a terrible idea to have her as Winifred and Victoria Clarke as Queen Agravaine. I think that could be sort of fun if that was maybe like a concept for those who love Kimberly Kimbell. Maybe on off nights they can do that.

[A]

And that's going to be their Patti LuPone at Les Mouche. On their one night off, they just go downtown and do Once Upon a Mattress.

[B]

Right. And another idea I had was maybe Jennifer Simard, like a slightly younger Jennifer.

[A]

Simard just can do anything she wants. I don't care what age she is. I don't care how tired she is. I guess I'm. I personally am getting a little tired of dream casting Jennifer Simard only because in my mind I'm going, she's got to be tired of me casting her in everything. Like, it's just, it's like Matt Flower Drum song. Who do you want? I'm like Jennifer Simard. I don't know. Mean Girls. Jennifer Simard. It's. I, I. Jennifer Smart is one of the few talent aliens of our time. And so I just want her to be in absolutely everything. I think Bonnie and Vicki are a great idea. I. Vicki has not been allowed to be like, like broad and campy comedic in so long. And I would love to see her do it again because I don't. Because she was in Urinetown for a hot second. She's, you know, was in cabaret for a very long time. She can do villain and she can do broad, but she's just so good at nuance that we always just like. So Vicki, I know you want to do noises off, but have you considered doing a David hair play? Because no one does nuance like you.

[B]

It's right.

[A]

She's like, fine, I guess I'll give you a multi layered heartbreaking performance yet again. And she's like, sometimes I just. There's a TV show called BoJack Horseman on Netflix. I don't know if you're familiar with it.

[B]

I know I haven't watched it, but I know of it.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's a hard show to recommend people because it is. It's a brilliant and hilarious, but it's also incredibly dark. But there's a great joke in the first season because it takes place in Hollywood. It's a cartoon show and they have Naomi Watts playing herself in a movie version of a real life event. And she's playing the movie version of Alison Brie's character Diane. And like Naomi Watts, what. What drew you to this role? She was like, I was just really tired of playing all these multi dimensional, complicated female leads who have interesting storylines. Like for once I just want to be the hot girl in a rom com. She's like, I'm never given stupid women roles who are just the prizes to be won. I'm always given these really interesting roles in these complex movies with fascina directors who treat me with such respect and obviously like the joke is in Hollywood. It's always the opposite of that. But I, I imagine Victoria Clark sitting with her agent and she's like, please just get me a jukebox musical. And he's like, I'm sorry, Vicki, I found you yet again an esoteric musical where you play a very complex part. And she's like, fine, I guess I'll get to nominated for a Tony again. For once, for once I just want to play the hot female lead's mother in a jukebox musical. Can you do that for me, agent? I wanna live happily, happily, happily ever after I want to walk happily out of a chapel eternally T For I Know that I'll never live happily ever.

[B]

After.

[A]

Till after I'm alright and I'll be happily happy.

[B]

I. I did have one more Winifred idea which was Annalee Ashford. Like maybe a little younger Annalee Ashford.

[A]

What's with you and the young Charles? 40's not dead. Right?

[B]

Right. Just for. Just for this particular role, I think. But I'm not sure. I was having a lot more trouble thinking of possible Queen Agravains. I don't know if it's just that that style of actress is not as much around anymore.

[A]

Yeah, that style of actress definitely isn't as around as much anymore. In a. In a Pre Cosby world, I would cast Felicia Rashad, but unfortunately she's made her alliances very clear and she is not wrong for the role. But I don't necessarily need to see her on stage again. Annalee's a good choice for Winifred. I would need a director who would challenge her because she's very. She has very specific tics that she tends to use a lot. And I would like to see new ones. Trying to think of other ones. Well, now I'm trying to think of Aggravates. I'm trying to think of Dauntless's. Because the other thing that's fun about this show is you really can cast people who you wouldn't think of as these tropes. Right. Dauntless is technically the prince, but he's sort of a sad sack and a goon. And I feel like you would want to cast someone who you would more think would do play Dungeons and Dragons than who would slay a dragon, you know, and that is, I'm trying to think like who would be right for that because, you know, like Dennis o' Hare did the Tracey Ullman version. He wasn't really right for it, but someone like that. So it. Dauntless should be cast how? We should be casting Seymour's in Little Shop. We should not be casting the twins from Spring Awakening. We need to pass the people who seem like America's losers.

[B]

Right? Right.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. And this isn't a commentary on these actors being like, oh, I look at you and I just think loser. But that rather these are people who could believably play a loser. So who would be a good Dauntless, do we think?

[B]

I'm not sure. Well, this is actually sort of in a different vein than what you were just saying. But I feel like Matt Doyle could be fun in more of the like Ken Berry way.

[A]

I'm Gonna reject that notion, Charles. Respect your opinion. Rejecting it fully. I like a Christopher Fitzgerald is more up that alley for me, for Dauntless, of who I would want. And I also think age doesn't have to be a factor. I think it's actually funny if the characters are in their early 40s. There's. There's a bit more of a desperation to it all. Like you. You all of a sudden realize just how long this has been going on. And it also makes Winifred's eagerness to get married a little more understandable if she's a bit older than the typical ingenue. Not because, like, there's a deadline to get married, but when you've been on your own for so long and all you want is companionship, it starts to gnaw away at you a little bit. That is a subject we will talk about more in depth and dramatically when we get to significant other. Everybody. Don't you worry your pretty little heads. But for this show, in the comedic sense, I mean, that's the song. Happily Ever after is right. With that, Winifred has an act too, which is. I would say that's really her I Want song. And it's. It's early in Act 2. It's a very weird place to put to the I Want song. But, like, you know that the. The gist of that song is she wants to get married. She wants to settle down. She wants the things she's read in the fairy tales. And unfortunately, fairy tales are not real life because all the princesses in the fairy tales get help. They have fairy godmothers. They have the seven dwarfs. They have, you know, they have all these things. And she's like, it's just me. I don't have a. One of my favorite lines is she goes, I don't have a fairy godmother. I haven't got a godmother. I have a mother. She's an ordinary woman. I even like the way Sarah Jessica Parker says that. Carol Burnett says it more like, I have a mother. And Parker's like, I have a mother. She's an ordinary woman. It's fun. Okay, so more in the Christopher Fitzgerald mold going down that route who are we thinking then, for Dauntless?

[B]

Okay. Maybe like Greg Hiltrith.

[A]

Yeah. If we're gonna keep going with the company guys, I'm down with that.

[B]

I'm down with that one idea I had. Did you see some Like It Hot yet? Have you seen.

[A]

I am seeing that in about three weeks from today. So this will be, I think yeah, I'll be seeing it the week or two after this episode comes out.

[B]

So there's a guy in that who I think it might be his first, like, major part. His name is Kevin Del Aguila. Maybe you know him from other shows. He could also be very funny as. As Dauntless.

[A]

The name sounds very familiar. I feel like I definitely have seen him. Some stuff I look forward to seeing in some. Like a hot. I think that's a good choice. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. Speaking of Company, I was like, what if Patty played Agravain? I know she's like, I'm done with musicals, but it.

[B]

Right. She can do the like non Equity tour of Once upon an Actress.

[A]

She'll get her Equity card back again. I'm sure she means what she says right now. And something will come along, something always does, and she will change her tune. As adults, as the times change and as we change, we reserve the right to change our perspectives and minds throughout time. And Patty will have her Equity card again at some point, I guarantee you.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In the meantime, yeah, she'll do the theater works tour version of Once Upon a Mattress.

[B]

Maybe even to going along with Patti LuPone. Who it made me think of immediately was, I think Christine Ebersole would also be a good queen. Agravaine, actually.

[A]

Oh, yeah. If she ever gets vaccinated, I think she'd be a great aggravate.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know that about Christine, right? That she. She doesn't trust them shots.

[B]

Well, I knew she was sort of like the crazy Republican. I didn't know she was not vaccinated, but I assumed she.

[A]

I mean, she might be now. She's definitely. I mean, I don't know how crazy Republican she is now. We don't hear from her much anymore, but I. I know that she definitely. Some. Some of her opinions came to light at bad moments where we're like, like, ooh, I don't think it's a cute look that both you and Mary and cotiard think that 911 was faked. Yeah, guys, we're spilling all the tea today for. For. Even though this is my one non explicit episode, Charles and I are just laying out all the Broadway tea for you guys. But no, Christine actually would be a great aggravating. First of all, she's this. Being a crazy Republican. She's also crazy talented and has still given to this day the best performance I've ever seen in a musical. But yeah, she's so funny and. And especially if you give her the chance to play an Uber. She's just gonna nail it harder than anyone.

[B]

My time is at a premium for soon the world will see me a.

[A]

Maternal bride to be I know I mustn't worry, Harry. Still, I wish you'd hurry. Harry, Harry, marry me. In a little while Just a little while you and I will be 1, 2, 3, 4 in a little while.

[B]

Considering what you were saying earlier, which is true, about Lin not being that funny a role, there are often funny actresses like Jane Krakowski who end up in that role. I think it's maybe just a coincidence.

[A]

But I think, yeah, they try to cast women who are funny in the role, and then either something happens with direction or. What. But like. Like Jane, you listen on the cast recording or you watch her in the booth, like, she's not funny. She. She lands the I'm pregnant line and that's it. And Bernadette Peters does it in the 70s version, and she's actually pretty good because Bernadette back in the day was a really brilliant comedian. Like, I'm trying to think who's, you know, a very funny youngster these days of the. Of the ingenue persuade, and there aren't many. Like, a young Jenny Barber would do a good job with it, I suppose.

[B]

Right. Well, I actually, if I had to give out, like, a Ravi for the worst performance in any Once Upon a Mattress version, I'd probably give it to Zooey deshau in the 2005 movie. It's just there's something about it that makes it seem so out of place. Like, her voice sounds so modern, and it doesn't fit in with the. The show or the humor. And she's, I think, the only Larkin to not land that line about being pregnant.

[A]

Yeah, she's absolutely. You're. That is correct. First of all, that. That ABC TV version is. Is no good from start to finish, and it's. It's. It's miscast from top to bottom. No one is right for their roles because.

[B]

Except I. I do like Edward Hibbert as.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Who does he play? The wizard.

[B]

He is the one who's, like, asking the questions at the beginning.

[A]

Yeah. Because Agravain's like, Right Hand man is essentially a wizard of some sort, which, I mean, not. Not a real wizard, but, you know, talks about horoscopes and all that good stuff, which today is just Instagram. But he. Yeah, I mean, Edward Hibbert is just a very brilliant comedian. I. I could not get over him in drowsy chaperone. Or him in curtains. He's got. To this day, I still remember when Bambi says, I think my dance is very arousing. And he says, the only thing you arouse is suspicion. Just such a wonderful, dry, coward person. Yeah, he's. He's. He's good in that. But, yeah, Zooey's not good. Or Zoe. I don't know how they pronounce her name. She's not good as Larkin. She's kind. She always sort of feels a little out to lunch in that version. Matthew Morrison, God bless him, doesn't have a funny bone in his body. Carol Burnett is just miscast. Tracy Ulman gives it the old college tribe. And much like Sarah, just like Parker, just is not right. A right fit. Dennis o', Hare, love him to death. He is not an endearing personality. You watch him in anything and part of you is just going like, what are you plotting? You always feel like he's plotting something. His character's gonna plot something so his Dauntless feels like, I don't know, like he's gonna, you know, poison everybody or something. He's always like, there's a menace about him.

[B]

I think that might be one of our disagreements. I did like Denis o' Hare in that role. I actually am not a big fan of. I'm forgetting his name now. The actor in the original who did it in the 60s TV special. What's his name again? Do you remember?

[A]

I might have it written down because he did it on Broadway as well, and. Yeah. And, I mean, nobody who did the show even liked him. So you're in agreement with that? You're in agreement with them. Do I have his name? Why. Why is it that you do not like him and why you do like Dennis o'? Hare? As I look for this name, I just think.

[B]

I think he falls a little bit flat. He. You can't see why she would want to marry him even. Which is another layer beyond why the mother doesn't want him to marry her, because he does feel like sort of a cold fish. I think Dennis o', Hare, I think, is more interesting, despite still being, of course, like, subjugated by his mother. But he. I think he seems more charming. I don't pick up on the threatening thing as much, but maybe it's because I haven't seen him in as many other roles where. Where that is what he is.

[A]

All you have to do is watch one episode of True Blood and you're like, oh, you play pure evil really well. He. I mean, I also remember seeing him as the baker and into the woods in the park and just being like, you're not. You're. There's some. There was something, like, off about it. He's. I mean, he's a brilliant, brilliant actor. But, I mean, you see him in True Blood, you see him in Assassins, and there's, like. There's a little bit of danger about him, which makes him such an exciting presence in anything he does. But it also, just, like. I don't know. There's. He never feels entirely harmless. And I feel like Dauntless has to be harmless. The. I never. I guess this is part maybe, like, not a flaw of the show, but something to be explored is the Winifred Dauntless relationship, right? So we have Dauntless, who All the. He. They. Both. He and Winifred, all they want to do is get married. Not necessarily to each other, but just in general. And he's still kind of a man boy who's under the thumb of his mother and very weak. And Winifred is just sort of the. A version of the manic pixie dream girl, you know, she's not like any other girl. She swam the moat, right? Which is like. He even says, like, that's the immediate reason why he likes her and why he wants her to stay. Because when she. When she says, you like me, why do you like me? Basically implying, like, you don't know me. And his response is, you swam the moat. And after that, it's just sort of about. Everything about her is just so different and fascinating. But the show never really gives you any connection between them other than the fact that, like, they both are just in love with the idea of getting married. So when he's like, I'm in love with a girl named Fred. And obviously the joke of that is her, you know, her name is Winifred. Call her by her nickname, Fred. And the whole thing is, it's the song of love. It's funny, but I never buy that he's in love with her. Or if he. Or if he is, I'm just like, okay, you're. I mean, your emotional maturity is that of a grasshopper. You. I don't think you really know what you're talking about. I don't think Winifred knows either. So, like, their happy ending is sweet domesticity in a. In a pleasant way, if not necessarily a fulfilling kind of way. And I'm. I mean, obviously, we're overanalyzing a show that's, you know, meant to be a vaudeville, but it's. But I Think that there, there is a, a little bit of a heart that is there that could be a little larger with just a little deeper digging of that relationship. Not like that they have a serious I'm not my father's son moment together, but just a few more moments where like they're on the same page in some kind. Right. I think we kind of chart his maturity through his relationship with Winifred of, you know, so he slowly starts to stand up to his mother. He tries to do the gentlemanly thing and escort her to her room, letting her sleep at the end, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean I just. It's up to the actors, I guess, to have that bond. And you're the original Daltoness. Yeah, he's a bit of a cold fish. I think that's also partly the role of like Dauntless is just. You're just like, you're like, oh, you poor wet blanket, just go over there and dry off. I think all you can really do with Dauntless is just play the well meaningness of it in hopes that the audience likes you. A male Sarah Jessica Parker, if you will.

[B]

And I think that Winifred is like such a sympathetic character and like such a great female role and everything that I was left feeling like she sort of deserved someone better than Dauntless. Like I guess we're supposed to think that she just likes him because he's a prince or like mainly because he's a prince. But I feel like we should have a little more justification of like what it is that makes him interesting to her because he's not really like handsome, he's not funny. Like you can't really see why she likes him other than his royal status.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I guess just that he's nice and likes her is a big deal to her because we're sort of led to believe until that moment Winifred never has had much male attention in that respect and has probably been prejudged for her demeanor and her looks for most of her life. So for someone to pay attention to her in a very genuine, heartfelt way is probably like, you know, just a very meaningful moment to her. There some things you can explain just in terms of pure chemistry, right. Or like having instant connection. Some I've had to explain to people before with like, so with west side Story, right? People are always like, I don't understand, like what. How Maria and Tony fall for each other so quickly. I'm like, it's one of those things where you meet somebody and like, the spark is just there and when. And with the new movie with Rachel Zegler and Ansel Elgort, I thought they actually made it even more explicit when people were like, well, now Maria's just so smart and sure of herself. What does she see in this bumbling Tony? And I'm like. Like, he looks like a J. Crew model. He's nine feet tall, and he's a nice boy. I would fall for him, too, in five seconds flat. But with Winifred and Dauntless, you're kind of right. Like, there's nothing about him other than the fact that he's sweet that gives Winifred any reason to be interested in him and not just interest him, but, like, willing to go through the stuff that she goes through to, like, deal with his mom and the test and all this stuff and, like. Like, the. The. The craziness of the castle and all the people who are just sort of bonkers there. She's got to have a reason to stay. Dullness is the reason, and it's never really earned. It was. We just sort of have to take it at face value. And once again, with a show like this, that's sort of, you know, the point. Everything has to be taken at face value. I just. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that it always is nice to have just, like, make a show go a little bit extra other than just whatever, it's fun. Don't. Don't worry about it. Whatever. Forget about it. Don't worry about it. And like, I talked about this in the Mamma Mia episode, in the sixth episode. When a. When a stupid show is smart and does the work for you, you can enjoy it all the more. And there's a lot of intelligence in Once Upon a Mattress, but there's. There are occasional rough spots where they're just sort of like, don't worry about it. Shut up. And, like, no, I'm not gonna shut up. I would like you to do the work, please. You know, you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be the professionals here, make this show in a way that I don't ever have to question it, that I can just ride the wave of entertainment bliss.

[B]

Yeah, definitely. I. I see what you mean. There. There actually is. I think there's one point where at least Tracy Owen says, I think, like, it's a loony bin or something, because she's supposed to be English, but I think it might be a different word that Carol Burnett uses. And she almost runs out.

[A]

I think she said, it's A madhouse or something. Yeah.

[B]

In that house. Because of all the, like, bullying and then they have to bring her back.

[A]

Yeah. Because she. After shy and all the queen can say is, you swear in the moat and Dauntless can't speak words. And. And then like the wizard comes up and he's like, here's your horoscope. And she's like, this a madhouse. And it's all. Yeah. So she's like, she's ready to bolt. And then Dallas is the one who gets her to stay and simply just him saying, I like you, and that's sort of enough for her. And. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not that, but that kind of goes back to what we were saying about the female roles in this and how Winifred, despite the fact that she's a fun role, I wouldn't. I would not necessarily argue that she's like the strong female lead that people remember her as being. She is. Is sure of herself and she is very, you know, shameless is the wrong word, but as you said, like, unassuming, you know. Right. That's again, very fish out of water element of the show. She's not so bold as to, like, always speak her mind. She's not so strong as to not crumble a little bit at the genuine intention from a man. There. There are. Are human things about her that I can relate to, if not necessarily making her that the most independent of people. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like I'm talking myself in circles, but like that it's. Oh, no, it's something about her that definitely feels human. It's not something about her that I would argue makes her the, like, strong, independent female lead that the show would have you believe or. Or people would remember her as being. Being. That's where. That's where I'll end that statement. That said, she does have some of the best songs in the show. There are other. Despite the fact that Lin and Harry's storyline is one I couldn't care less about, I prefer their songs to some of the other secondary songs. Like, I don't like Very Soft Shoes. I'm like, you like. You like Very Soft Shoes?

[B]

Yeah. I find that. I find it fun. See, I hear it.

[A]

I just go snip snip.

[B]

Yeah, I know. Everyone has different songs like that from. From various shows.

[A]

Yeah. What are. I guess. Well, in a little While is your big snip snip song. I know that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I do. I. I do like the play on the you and I will be 1, 2, 3, 4. Because you make. It makes it sound like the line is, you and I will be one. But it's like, no, no, we're gonna be one, two. And then he points to the belly. Three, four. Assuming that they're having twins. That's very presumptuous of Harry. And Larkin has a really funny. Not funny, but a very clever lyric. Something about, like, her. How she's gonna, like, be showing maternally or something like that. Like maternally eternally. Something like that. Some. Some rhyme like that, which every time I hear it I go, that's a very clever lyric.

[B]

Oh, yeah. And I think the lyric at the end of Shy is clever. When they say, like, she's one man shy. I. I wasn't expecting them to use it too.

[A]

Yeah, it's a nice play on words. Yeah, it's. It's. What's interesting is Shy is. Well, I guess in a way it's a little bit of an I want song because it starts as an I am song and then the second half is just. Is. Is more about her want. She says, this is who I am. And then it goes into, I'm going fishing for a mate. And I like that they keep the. The water element, the swimming element for her since she comes from the marshlands lands, whereas the only. Only the poor folk have dry land. The nobility all live right in the swamp. Yeah. One man shy. What? So beyond the fact that you think Larkin and Harry should go bye bye, was it beyond the fact that you think that the Dauntless Winifred connection is a little weak? And I agree with you on both of those fronts. Is there anything else, surgery wise, you would do with this show if you had your druthers?

[B]

That's. That's a good question. Is there anything else, surgery wise? I don't know. I. I really like a lot of the rest of. Including some things we haven't talked about as much yet. Like the man to Man Talk song, I think.

[A]

Put a pin in that. Let's talk about that song in a second.

[B]

Oh, yeah. And pretty much every moment with the father and the miming, I think is done really well. Especially when Jack Guilford. Jack Guilford does it because he's a comedian that I love and. Yeah, so. And he's really great in this part and for it. Is there anything else that should be cut? I think maybe the sequence where she is, like, physically rolling and tossing around on the bed could stand to be a little bit shorter. Not a lot shorter. It did remind me a Little bit of the eating scene in hello Dolly and that you sort of feel like it could go on forever if she wanted it to, but that maybe she's having, like, a little too much fun with it to keep it going for so long.

[A]

That's absolutely fair. It's very much dependent on the actress and how the audience is feeling. Because, like, I'm sure with. With Carol Burnett in Live in the Theater with her comic genius and whatnot, it's just, you know, you're sitting there going, more, please. I inject it into my veins, please. And with Sarah just like Parker, you know, again, not much of a clown. You're sitting there going, like, okay, we gotta wrap it up. You. You can only. You can only play this bit for so long. Yeah, that's definitely something you figure out in the rehearsal room. And then you. Time to audience reaction, for sure. I also think. I mean, I don't know. I think there could have been a slightly. I mean, that this show wraps things up quicker than a speeding bullet.

[B]

It.

[A]

It's like, for how long we spend dragging out the Harry Larkin melodrama, talking about the minstrel and his. Or the jester. Jester. Which one is it? The jester. The minstrel and his, like, father in the dancing shoes.

[B]

The jester, I think.

[A]

Yeah. The gesture that we're, like, not dragging it out, but a lot of references to, like, your father back on the day, and it's like, I don't need another character. And then we. And then we get to the end, and when Dauntless finally stands up to his mother, the curse was that the king could not speak until the mouse devoured the hawk. And no one really knew what that meant. Everyone took it literally, apparently. They tried to get a large mouse and a tiny hawk. The hawk flew away and the mouse bit Daddy. Or it's the other way around. The mouse ran away and the hawk bit Daddy. Something like that, that. And eventually, Dauntless stands up to his mother. The mouse devours the hawk, and that's what creates the curse to be broken. She becomes silent. The king starts to speak again. And within 90 seconds, Dauntless and Winifred get married. We are shown that it wasn't the pea, it was the armor. And Winifred gets to go to sleep, finally. And they take the pea out, and the king and the queen have a new, you know, marriage balance. Larkin and Harry get to get married. And we're like. It's just very, very fast. And I don't mind that necessarily, but it is like Kind of. It's like walking on a treadmill at 2 miles per hour. And then all of a sudden we're going at 8. Just like for a short period, for like a 90 second sprint. You're like, oh, okay, we're done. Just. Even though, as you said, like, the very final moments are very satisfying, but it, like, story wise, we are like, oh, okay, we're, we're, we are there now. We are at the end. It's, there's no more. We are, we are glossing over absolutely everything else. Fantastic. All right, here we go. And everything that you and I are talking about with this show, I think is part of the reason why we haven't had another Broadway revival. Because despite how fun it is, despite the showcase, it can be for a lot of great talent. It is a show that you. That overall works but is not overall exceptional. It's like always. It's often very pleasant. Sometimes it's very pleasant. But you're never like guffawing from the brilliance of the humor. You're never blown away by the inventiveness of the score. You're always like, that was nice. That was nice.

[B]

I do wonder if maybe someone would want to revive it. It. Sorry, not revive it, revise it is what I meant. Like, maybe someone who I'm trying to think of, like, who writes the books for, like, the Disney shows and stuff.

[A]

The books for the Disney shows, like on Broadway.

[B]

Aladdin and Lion King. Like, who, who are the book writers for those?

[A]

A corporation. They have a few people. Chad Boguellen, I know did Aladdin. Lion King was a couple of people. Linda Wolverton, I think it contributed to that as well. Well, Linda Wolverton also did the book for Beauty and the Beast, and she was one of the four book writers for Aida Newsies was Harvey Fierstein. I would, I, I am not a fan of his Funny Girl updates, but I would definitely be down to see Harvey Fierstein take a crack at maybe streamlining Once Upon a Mattress and punching up a couple of the jokes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Musical.

[B]

He'd be a fun queen Aggravain, too.

[A]

Oh, yeah, he'd be a lot of fun. I would be down for his aggravane. He hasn't been in Dragon a minute. Yeah, I mean, Charles Bush. I would see Charles Bush's Agravain.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I mean, Charles Bush. I want to see Charles Bush play every role for a. From a woman of a certain age. Just no matter, no matter what the context. I just want to see It.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

Charles Bush's Joanne and Company. Charles Bush's Kimberly Akimbo. Like skivvy. All of them. All of them. He deserves it. He. He should play every single one of the grand dames. So let's talk about man to man.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Set the scene. Picture it. It's the. It's the castle. It's Dalmas and his father. What's going on? What's happening?

[B]

Yes. So I can't remember if it's the jester or the wizard, but one of them urges the king to have a talk with Dauntless because they think he's about to get married and to sort of give him the talk, as it were, before that happens. And so, of course, the father is. The king is still under this curse where he can't speak, so he has to pantomime the whole thing. So the entire song is sung by Dauntless, guessing what his father is trying to do with the hand motions, with the setting of the male bird and female bird and all that stereotypical stuff. So it's a really fun song in that. I think that is one of the most inventive moments in the show.

[A]

It is a really wonderful moment. It's very funny and it's also very touching because it is one of the few times that Dauntless and his father are alone on stage. And despite everything in that family, the king and Queen do not like each other. Dauntless has a very toxic relationship with his mother. It is very clear that Dauntless and his father get along despite the language barrier. So it's nice to see that human connection in a way that a lot of people can relate to. And, yeah, it's just a really wonderful moment. Mary Rogers talks about this a lot. How the year that it was on Broadway in 59 to 1960, a lot of their queer male contemporaries who would come see the show would come up to them afterwards crying about that song because they just thought it was such a touching moment. And like, I wish I had something like that with my dad. And they. All the writers were like, oh, we thought it was just funny. We didn't realize we wrote something that was going to move people. And I mean, it is. It is mostly funny, but it is. It is touching in that same way. I do love that Domus just keeps not getting it. So the father just gives up and says, it's whatever, it's the stork. And weirdly, in giving up, Daunce is then able to connect all the dots in the end, similar to the structure of the musical. You know, it's a very drawn out situation where we're like, okay, how long can we play this? How long can we play this? Oh, it all gets resolved in the last 25 seconds. Golden. But it, I would argue it works very well in man to Man. And then they use the chorus of that for the end of the show. The ba ba ba ba. All life is grand. It's very interesting. It's. It's really nice. I like it. I like when. I like when shows repeat songs or motifs for a new dramatic effect and I'm like, oh, see how things can. Can work differently with a different context. It's all about perspective. Wait a minute. Papa flower seed man, woman be baby small. It isn't the stork head, isn't the stark head. It isn't the stork at all. Oh, life is grand. It's very interesting. I think I understand. I think. I think I know. It's very interesting. Thank you, father. And Father, I love you so.

[B]

Yeah, it is definitely a touching moment in the show. I remember being actually especially touched by it, seeing it live as opposed to the screen recordings, but it definitely works there too. One thing I was going to say back to the point of like maybe a revision or something, is that I think that there's no need for it not to be like a 90 minute one act show, especially because as you said, everything gets resolved so quickly. It almost makes sense for there not to be a break in the middle. And I actually read the. I read the Wikipedia entry to get the best sense of when it sort of breaks in the middle of the action. And I do feel like most of the plot happens in the first act even. And the second act is basically just her doing this final test. But I think that it works well the way they compressed it for the 60s version.

[A]

I think because the show as written is pretty much exactly two hours. And there are some musicals that are two hours with no intermission. Like A Chorus Line. If you. If we were to cut Normandy, if we were to cut out about a minute and a half of the bit on the mattress, which still leaves us with a sensible 35 minutes on that mattress. I know you like it. I think if we were to cut Very Soft Shoes. If we were to cut. Because I think we should. I think we can keep. In a Little While, I think having Normandy and A little In a Little While are two songs that are. It's like one of them's got to go. And I think in a little while we probably should have just to sort of like establish that Larkin and Harry are characters we're gonna be following, unfortunately. But cut Normandy. Cut like, a couple of the bits. You know, I don't think we necessarily need the. The Larkin, Winifred, oh, you're a scullery maid bit to go on for quite so long. Yeah, just like little trims here and there and then. And then punch up a couple of the jokes. We can definitely get this down to like an hour and 40, no intermission. Maybe even a little shorter with the right timing. And it's. Yeah, I think that would make it feel still like a full evening. I think when you try to make something. When you try to drag something out, it can feel lighter and more padded and. And less interesting, as opposed to a tighter, richer, shorter piece, you know, I.

[B]

Also think they could we shorten those whomps of Home Song, which I do like, but I do sort of feel like it's one joke for. For the whole song, which I think it could be more like a minute and a half song rather than like a three minute song.

[A]

Yes, absolutely. Swamps of Home is definitely a song. We were like, in theory, I should like this. In practice, I'm just sort of tolerating it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's also like, the thing about Normandy is Normandy is actually a pleasant song to listen to. I do just sort of sit there and go, we've got plot to get to. Can we, like, cut this bit? Like, she was gonna run away. She's not gonna do it anymore. Okay, great. We get it, like, moving on. It's. It's such a non issue. It's. It's lurking, me coming out, being like, I'm pissed off at Harry. I might run away. And like, great, so let's convince you not to run away through song. And then you go back in the castle. It's like nothing happened.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's like we were gonna have an issue, but we resolved it before it became an issue show. It's. There's a TV show called Happy Endings, which plays up on a lot of the tropes of sitcoms. And one of the things they do is when a character starts dating somebody who's not a part of, like, the friend group, she goes to meet his friends, and the one of the friends is like. And at the end, after all of it was over, we realized it was just a simple misunderstanding and we communicated and it was fine. And she was like. Like, excuse me. Like, there was no mistaken identities where someone did something to prove a point. Like she's like, what do you mean? And it's because in Happy Endings, Happy Endings is like every other sitcom, like Friends Are Willing Grace, where there's a misunderstanding. And instead of someone being like, I think I misunderstood you, could you repeat that more clearly? Right, yeah. It's all craziness. And that's sort of. Once on Upon a Mattress has it both ways, where there are sometimes misunderstandings that go on for a little too long and then misunderstandings that get resolved pretty much immediately. And usually the ones that are immediate are. Again, when a woman's like, I have an issue with this. And the men are like, but should you have one? You're a woman.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly where the show's motives lie, but yeah.

[B]

Although once it was one of the first shows composed by woman as. As they talk about in Shy a lot. Yep. Shy is an interesting book because of. She doesn't come across as, like, a great human being in many aspects of, like, relationships, career. She definitely seems like she would have been hard to work with as, like, a collaborator. And also, I do. I sort of hesitate to say this because I don't want to, like, invalidate anyone's experience or anything, but I.

[A]

They're all dead now, Charles. Don't worry about it.

[B]

Right. But I do think she comes across as a little bit too, like, ungrateful towards her parents. Like, when she says the big stuff but not the small stuff. Some of the stuff is, like, really important. Like the thing where her husband, her, were about to, like, go bankrupt if Richard Rogers hadn't written. Written them a check so that they could, like, go on not being homeless, essentially. So I feel like she sort of overlooks a lot of that too much.

[A]

I mean, granted, I'm only halfway through the book, but I think it's a. It's a tricky situation when two people who are. Who supposedly are meant to love you unconditionally and prove otherwise, it can. It can be a little challenging. And I think it took time for her to recognize that the big stuff was very important and, you know, and when it really mattered, her parents did come through. But I think, you know, there's always going to be a little resentment of, you know, especially with her formative years, that they weren't really there and, in fact, were often damaging. But, you know, I think there's. Mary Rogers's life is fascinating, and I highly recommend everybody read Shy if you haven't yet, because.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I do. Too cheap.

[A]

Saw everything. She knew everyone she experienced so much. She did so much. And she's very down on herself and her accomplishments. Like, she always kind of thought that what she mostly was was very smart and that she was pretty good at a lot of things, but not really great at anything. And I. And part of me is like, that's fair, because you look at her, all the things that she did because she did so many different careers, and she did a good job with all of them, but she never really made, like, a major mark in the way that, you know, her father did or Sondheim did, but she still made a mark. Ironically, her biggest achievement that has lasted the longest of her. Any of her legacies is Freaky Friday, the whole body swapping.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, storyline. But, I mean, she was. She was a talented writer in many respects, and she was a good. I think she. I think her collaborative skills were probably frustrating because she has even said herself, like, she was not an endless well of talent. Her ideas came from just constantly coming back and trying again and trying again. So whereas she might work with, like, a Stephen Sondheim on a song, he's like, oh, no, here's a lyric for you. She's like, okay, I'll come back to you in two weeks with the music. And Sondheim's probably like, what do you mean? He's like, you should have the music in two days. Despite that, he was like a major procrastinator himself. And then her father's like, you should have the song in an hour. She just sort of. I think she understood the limitations of her talents. And looking back, even though she made peace with a lot of it, there's definitely still some demons there. Yeah. And then she's really hardest on Arthur Lawrence, as well she should be. That man was not a good person, and I think he was a little high and mighty for someone who really only had two really, like, like, impenetrable achievements, which is the book for Gypsy and the book for west side Story. And, I mean, people come for the book for west side Story, but I think that book is very strong. I think I talked about this in. Maybe it was the Rent episode. Rent or Torchlong, I can't remember which. But Arthur. Lauren's always blaming other people for the failure of his Broadway plays. I'm like, you wanna know what all those plays have in common, Arthur? You wrote all of them. At some point, you gotta look in the mirror, babe, and go, it's me. Me. I'm the problem. As Taylor Swift once wrote, hi, it's me. I'm the problem. Are there any other songs we haven't really covered? I mean, I've mentioned how much I really love the opening, and there's not much to say other than the fact that I think it's jazzy and fun with some cute lyrics. If you're gonna listen to any version of it, I do recommend the revival. I think it's the most Broadway of them all. I really like Happily Ever After. I think that's a really great, great act two, I want song and sort of an ultimate truth that many people don't want to say about, especially, I think, women. Because with independence and with, like, you know, the rise of feminism in the 60s and 70s and the women's movement. No, the idea of domestic life and married life is considered a weakness for a lot of people because it's like, no, we've been trained to want this all our lives. And it's not really what you want. It's just what you've been programmed to want. And I think that's true. But it's also. It's true that we've been programmed to want monogamy and domesticity, but that doesn't stop the fact that at our core, we do still want companionship. Just someone, you know, in your corner to share experiences with. And I think it's really not brave. It's not brave of Winifred, but I. I like the idea of this sort of. Of not like other girls girl to say in Act 2. Just like. It's not like. It's not a political statement. I just want to be with somebody. Can I just, like, get with someone? And what makes it not freakly is she's like, do you know how hard it is out here for a single person, you know, to. To want to find someone and not be able to find someone? And then you find someone and his mother is this person. And then you have to go through a test. You don't know what that's going to be, and you don't have a fairy godmother. It's really hard, y'.

[B]

All. Yeah, definitely. And it's actually kind of a funny coincidence that I think is addressed in the book, that Happily Ever after was also the name of that song and company that had to be cut and replaced with being alive, which takes a very different view of marriage and all that.

[A]

Yeah, well. And I think it. It's interesting, like. Yeah, the whole. Because the whole idea of marriage and company is originally, anyway, was sort of like, it's all a sham, it's all a lie. And then they. Sana always talks about how they went for the cheap out with the end of Company. And I think the problem with being alive is not the song itself or not even its message. I think its message is very true. It's just that the show doesn't lead up to it. Like, we have 90 of a show that was written to end with happily ever after, and they didn't really make enough changes to the rest of the show to justify being alive happening. So it feels. Sometimes can feel like out of left field. But yeah, being alive and happily ever after from Once Upon a Mattress, very similar mentalities of, like, it's hard out here. Sometimes you just want someone in your corner because friends can only, you know, be around for so long. Family, you know, they. You go. You can't choose your family, as Mary Rogers learned. So even if they technically love you, even if they're there for the big stuff, you're not always going to like your family. You want someone you love and you like who will just be there. And that's. Yeah, it's. It's a really nice. It's really nice thing to have, if you can get it. And again, as I mentioned, we will discuss that more in depth with a significant other episode. Oh, Larkin and Harry have another song that I completely forgot about that's so stupid. Yesterday I loved you, you. I hate that song. I think it's stupid. It.

[B]

It is there. There's not a lot of good material for them.

[A]

They're like, we have the hot young people. Haven't been. Haven't sung in a while. Let's give them another song. And it's another one joke song where, you know, they fight, they get back together, and Lark is basically like, do you still love me? And Harry's like, well, yesterday I loved you, but not as much as today. And like, that's the joke where it's like, oh, no, he doesn't love her anymore. It's like, no, yesterday I loved you. But it doesn't compare to now. And it's like, like, okay, after the first verse, we get it right.

[B]

And there. There are a few other songs that are sort of like that that I think do better. Like, what am I trying? Like, you're timeless to me from Hairspray. Or there's another one like that that is in that exact same mold of like the. I think it's the man who keeps saying insulting things but then sort of remedying them. Kid, do you have any idea what it would be?

[A]

Or he says insulting things and Then. And then fix it. I don't know. I. I'm. I'm more. I can think of more like, one joke. Songs that start strong and then don't really end well. I mean, the one that Sondheim always talks about, which I agree with him on in theory, although Donna Murphy really nailed it, is 100 easy ways to Lose a Man, which is. You know, this song is funny for about the first two verses, and then after that, it's just about building to the big old end. And he said, like. Like he's never groaned harder in a theater than when Roslyn Russell. Roslyn Russell shouted 98 ways to go. And he's like, oh, God, we're gonna be here for 98 verses. It's. It's fair. But. Yeah, it's. It's. It's. It's. I think it's trying to have fun with the not. What's. What's the term that we came up with with Rodgers and Hammerstein, where they came up with sort of like the conditional love song or something like that, where it's not just. Yeah, it's not just I love if I loved you, people will say we're in love. And so this is trying, I think, have fun with that in a more kind of smart alecky way of, yeah, well, yesterday I loved you, and I love you more now. And it's cute for a second. And then it just keeps, like, every hot person who's never been told that they're not funny, this song is too hot. People going, we got them in the palm of our hands. It's like, no, sweetie, you lost us 90 seconds ago. There may or may not be a Broadway ingenue who I saw in the last year in a role that is pretty funny. I wouldn't say it's the funniest role of all time, but, like King Lansome laughs and watching it, watching this person play this role, I went, oh, you are so beautiful, and you sing so beautifully. No one has ever sat you down and been like. Like, you do not have comedic timing. I openly confess tonight I love you less than I will tomorrow morning. I love you as never before. But since this afternoon, my heart has changed itself. Any other things about this show, Charles, that you would like to touch on?

[B]

I think we've touched on almost everything. I did have one more story because in preparing for this, one of the things I was doing was sort of going back through the list of people I talked to and trying to find anyone who was involved in this show in Any way. So the other one, other than Liza Gennaro I found, was a guy named. His name was Bob Fitch or Robert Fix. He was the rooster in the original Annie. And he was also a dancer on the special, the 60s special, I think, rather than the 70s one. And he told this story about how there's that moment in shy during the sort of dance break when Carol Burnett falls off of the top of the stairs. Do you remember the male dancers catch her? So apparently she was pregnant while filming it and the director was like, oh, well, you don't have to do this. I understand. It's a safety thing. And she said, like, no, I insist on doing it. I want to do it. It makes sense, makes everything better. But then it was very nerve wracking for all the male dancers who had to catch her because, of course, if they, like, didn't put their arms out at the right time, something very bad could have happened to her and her baby.

[A]

Absolutely. Luckily they didn't. And. And she and the baby are fine. Yeah, that is. Oh, boy. We love commitment, Carol. But also sometimes, you know, Kelly stopped doing the cartwheel in South Pacific after, like three months. Carol did not need to get. I jump off of a staircase. That's a fun story. I mean, I'll say. With the 90s production, from the few people I've spoken to who are part of it, apparently everyone just assumed they were getting fired every day of rehearsal, all throughout previous. And then they actually did fire, I think, their minstrel or no, their. Their jester. They fired their jester in the beginning of previews. And at that point it was just so clear to everyone that nothing was right and that if it was going to actually get fixed, they would need to just sort of do a complete overhaul of everything. It was like the director was wrong. This, the design was wrong because, like, the design was just too luscious and elaborate and, like, kind of claustrophobic and overbearing. And they're like, they're the first or second week of previews and they. And they fired the gesture. And everyone just kind of went like, really? That was the problem. It was, you know, putting on, putting a band aid over 10 gunshot wounds. And yeah, just everyone was convinced, including Sarah Jessica. She also thought she was getting fired every day. And when it did finally close, it was sort of like a sigh of relief for everyone. They're like, okay, I can. I can move on from this now and from what it feels like everyone did, because I know Jane Krakowski got asked about it once in an Interview. And she kind of went, okay. She's like, sure, let's talk about that for five seconds and then move on. And that. And that woman has been in some. Some things. So she. So for her to say that about Once Upon a Mattress, it's like, oh, that must have really done a number on you.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah. I would love to have a respectful sit down with Sarah Jessica about that show and just sort of discuss as an actor, what you do when you recognize that you're in something that is beyond your capabilities and you can't really back out because the whole thing is sort of riding on you.

[B]

Yeah. Sort of like Beanie Feldstein a little bit.

[A]

I wasn't gonna go there, but now that. But now that we're there, the Beanie of it all is similar to Sarah Jessica in the sense that two talented individuals who are. Who are just wrong for their parts in a way that nothing was gonna change that. And while it is partly on a performer, when they do have agency, someone like Beanie and someone like Sarah Jessica Parker do have agency when it comes to accepting roles. Someone like, you know, working musical theater actress Jane Krakowski, circa 1996, does not have the agency to turn down Once Upon a Mattress when it's, you know, I think it's right before Ally McBeal. So it's not like she's. It's not like she's like, oh, my God, I've got TV money now. I can do what I want. It's like, no, she's going from show to show. She's not going to turn this down. But someone like Sarah Jessica Parker or Beanie, you know, they have agency. But also it's up to the production staff to kind of look at what they have and. And be honest about, like, whether they think that their leading lady can do it and. Or if they can do it to the extent that it'll work for the show. And for someone like Sarah Jessica Parker, you, part of you goes, well, this show is so fun. There's got to be a way in for me. And then, like, I don't know at what point you realize that it's. You've just hit a wall and it's not going to get better. What do you do? Do you keep your head down? Do you just try to make it a pleasant experience for everybody? Do you continue to try, especially when you're getting no help from your director? One day I will do a miniseries on the funny girl of it all. Because I have. I do have some. I have some context at that show. And they have made it clear that they will not say the full story until the show is done because they are still connected to it in various ways. And that's fine. Similar to the Once Upon a Mattress family and like and how Lewis Cleal will now come out about Jerry Gutierrez because that man be dead. Once Funny Girl is. Is dead, more stories will come out of the woodwork. So, Charles, we have a new game. You've listened to the first two episodes of this podcast, so I think you know the game is coming up now. It's called Six Degrees of Sally Murphy, and it is called who Lives, who Dies? Janine Tesori, which is just Six Degrees of Janine. Sorry. Now, there are some rules. We connect original productions of the shows we're talking about to either Sally Murphy or Jeannie or Jeanine Dosori. You have the entire original company, no replacements, but you also have the entire production team as well. So that includes writer, director, choreographer, set designer, as well as designers and directors of other connections. So, for example, I'll give you. I'm going to give you my Sally Murphy connection. I figured it out while we were talking just now. Now that now that I'm on vpn, we have commercials. And I keep on saying that I'm gonna say in the episodes, I'm gonna take a break. Like. Like, we gotta take a break for the commercials. And I keep forgetting to do it. So after this episode, I'm gonna start doing it. So I'm. I'm everyone. I'm holding myself accountable for the. For the next episode. That said, while we were just talking, now I have my Six Degrees of Sally Murphy. This will give you an idea. Once Upon a Mattress starred Carol Burnett, who did the Broadway production of Putting It Together, which had a set design by Bob Crowley. Bob Crowley designed the set for the 1994 carousel with Sally Murphy. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's our Six Degrees of Sally Murphy. Now we gotta find basically Six Degrees of Janine Tesori with the original Once Upon a Mattress.

[B]

This.

[A]

I'm struggling.

[B]

Yeah, I am, too. I guess it would probably would make the most sense for it to be something earlier on, like maybe when she was still in a Ranger.

[A]

When she was still in the rain.

[B]

Chair on a Ranger. Like what she did for shows like Secret Garden.

[A]

Yeah, Secret Garden. How to Succeed, Sound of Music. Okay, well, so, okay, let's.

[B]

I guess you could. Or what? You can't do Rivals, because I was going to say how to Succeed Sarah Jessica Parker, but that violates the rules.

[A]

It. Do it. Do. Okay, so we could do a performer again for the original Once Upon a Mattress. Or we could do production stuff. Would you. Do you want to do like Mary Rogers, George Abbott, Jack Guilford? Carol Burnett again? Yeah, pick the launching off part.

[B]

I feel like starting with Carol Burnett is the easiest because she came up to the most modern era.

[A]

Okay, okay, so we'll have Carol Burnett. Carol Burnett, he wrote the play Hollywood Arms.

[B]

Right. With Michelle Park. Would that be a connection?

[A]

Okay, possibly. Possibly a connection. So let me. Okay, so we have Carol Burnett wrote Hollywood Arms with Michelle Pac. That's. That's connection number one. Michelle Pak. Okay, okay, okay, here we go. Michelle Pac was in Seussical with. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. With Alice Playton. She was the mayor's wife. Alice Playton was the original grandma in Caroline or Change, which was written by Janine Tesori. Bing, bang, boom, there we go. Bam. Oh, God, that. That took me a second. I was like. Because that could have gone a million ways. I was like Kevin Chamberlain. What. What is the connection there? Janine Lamana, what's our connection? Who. Who do we. Who we got? Who we got? No, that's it, that's it. Perfect, perfect, perfect. We love it very much, much. Charles, this has been lovely. Thank you so much for joining today.

[B]

Thank you. I've had so much fun. Anytime. I'd be happy to do this. It was so much fun.

[A]

So much fun. Now you'll definitely come back. Where. If you want people to find you, where can they find you?

[B]

Oh, you can find me on Instagram, I'm at Backstage Babble on Facebook as Charles Kirsch. And you can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you listen. So, yeah.

[A]

Who was your most recent guest on Backstage? Babel.

[B]

My most recent guest was. Oh, now it's been a few weeks since I put one out, so can I say the next one?

[A]

Yeah, say who tells. The next one is.

[B]

Yeah, right. Okay. The next one is going to be Mark Shaman. So I'm excited about that. Nice. It was. Oh, pre recorded. There they all are. So it was a really fun conversation. I think that's.

[A]

I will say, guys, if you like my podcast, I will. Charles Kersh here has a lineup of guests. That just makes you go, okay. You're like, okay, child, calm down. With knowing absolutely everybody and talking to everyone in this world, you, your roster is amazing. If you like this podcast, guys, you can rate, you can review, you subscribe. We love a nice five star rating. We have a new Review. It's very short. Short. Five stars. Cue the light of the Piazza Overture. Five stars. Smartest. I love it already. Matt is the smartest theater boy and if you love Broadway, you will love him. And this podcast with three exclamation points. Thank you very much, dear. We love that review. Concise, to the point. If you want to follow me, I am on Instagram at Matt Koplik, usual spelling, and that's really it. Join us next week week when we cover I don't know what. Because this whole thing is out of order. I have to consult my schedule. As you know, Charles, we close out every episode with the big Broadway diva. I am almost positive we have not done Carol Burnett. So I'm thinking she would be a good one, right, to, like, connect to this show. Yeah. Either her. Maybe Jane Grikowski so we can give Lady Larkin a little bit of love. I don't know. Carol Burnett. Do we think Think the right one?

[B]

Yeah, let's say Carol Burnett.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Maybe something from Fade Out. Hayden.

[A]

So, guys, you did not see just what happened just there. Charles being Charles was like, okay, I want everyone to remember I'm the golden age wunderkind. I know all the golden age musicals. I'm gonna name the Julie Stein score that no one knows. The Carol brunette vehicle that everyone's forgotten about, including Carol Burnett. So we'll do Fade Out, Fade in just to please my golden age wunderkind once again. Charles, thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. I hope you all enjoyed this as much as Charles and I did. And that's it. Have a great week. Take us away, Carol. Bye. Go home, train I'll keep flogging away until my name becomes a sweet refrain sun crumbs, sunny cow to main without success and nothing less.