The Princess and the Pea performed at Boston Center for the Arts.
The production, which is performed at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, takes the question of happily ever after and adds a new, modern and extremely relevant spin to it: a gay one.
The story is a playful twist on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Princess and the Pea,” peppered with subplots both sexual and Oedipal. Prince Dauntless (Todd Sandstrom) is still a bachelor, due to the interference of his mother, Queen Aggravain (Kate deLima) who requires that any potential bride pass a strenuous royalty test. Dauntless’ father, King Sextimus (Eric Ruben), is unable to help his son, because of a lingering curse that left him mute.
And an annoying addition to the rule: none of the lords and ladies of the kingdom are able to marry until Dauntless does, much to their frustration. The show opens with the twelfth potential bride undergoing her test, which she sadly fails. Enter Winnifred – royalty from a nearby kingdom, who is so eager to meet Dauntless that instead of waiting for the drawbridge, he swims the moat.
That’s right. He. In a stroke of brilliance, director John Ambrosino cast the enormously talented Brent Reno to play the role of Winifred the Woebegone, putting a man in the role that was played on Broadway by Carol Burnett and Sarah Jessica Parker.
However, this casting did not require any changes in the script of the show, however, which is ripe with sexual undertones and not-so-subtle double entendres. This show, simply put, is hilarious, and this cast presents the humor in a manner that is mature and refined, yet somehow still flamboyant.
Irony is the theme of the night, with approximately every third line of the show instigating an outburst of laughter from the audience. As the show’s lyrics state many times, a princess is ”a delicate thing, delicate and dainty as a dragonfly’s wing,” and Winifred, decked out in vibrant, sparking makeup and a bright pink wig, is anything but. The character’s introductory number, a brassy and bold rendition of a song titled, “I’m Shy” is simply delightful, both in its performance and its mockery.
While Winifred easily fills the stage, the supporting cast in this show is superb. deLima’s Queen Aggravain perfects the role of an overbearing, busybody mother, strutting through the room in high heels, fluttering her hands and repeatedly bemoaning her sad, sad state.
Her sidekick The Wizard, played by Ray O’Hare, is a mischievous, scheming sidekick.
The minstrel, delightfully played by Stephanie Tovar, and the jester, Shonna McEachern, provide an amusing subplot, as do Prince Harry and Lady Larkin, played by Ariel Heller and Erin Tchoukaleff, who bring a sweet romance – as well as an illegitimate child – to the stage.
The choreography of the show is enjoyable, especially the Spanish Panic danced at the royal ball. But it is the delivery of the lines by this superb cast that emphasize the humor in all the right places. It’s not many shows that can make the line, “That’s not my leg” as funny as this one did.
However, Once Upon a Mattress, which opened during Pride Week in Boston, carries extra weight behind it. The issue is not only a marriage – it is a marriage of two men, which faces more challenges than a pea stuck beneath twenty mattresses. Winifred’s plaintive song “Happily Ever After” has a melancholy resonance to it, sung by a man who simply wants to marry the man he loves. While that desire seems so simple, it is far from it. This fairy tale strongly resembles real life, especially in the main character’s desire. When Winifred sings, “I want some happily ever after to happen to me,” many other people are thinking the exact same thing. Hopefully their ending will be as happy as Winifred’s is.
