Silly prevails in 'Once Upon a Mattress'

Arvada Center production is a bright, funny romp for the whole family

If you’ve seen The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol too many times to count – or even if you haven’t – Arvada Center is currently offering a delightful addition to the many productions available this holiday season. It’s one that should charm everyone in the family.

With their production of Once Upon a Mattress, be advised that you’re in for a hilarious romp that will send you out of the theater with a huge smile on your face (unless you’re a real-life Scrooge).

The original 1959 production — a loopy incarnation of the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea — catapulted Carol Burnett to stardom, and with good reason. Burnett brought her signature wackiness to the role of a princess who breaks the mold of what the wife of a future king should be. But it doesn’t take Burnett or a Broadway cast to make Arvada Center’s version a holiday highlight. Every lead actor is pitch-perfect and the overall production elements – sets, costumes, lighting, choreography, music direction and supporting singers and dancers – are worthy of the best New York shows.

This lighthearted Mattress is unlikely to be on anyone’s list of the best shows in the musical theater canon, but its engaging music by Mary Rodgers, clever lyrics by Marshall Barer (“I lack a lass; alas! Alack!”), and loony book by Barer, Jay Thompson and Dean Fuller make for an enchanting evening of fun.

Image by Amanda Tipton Photography

Swamp princess

Mattress is a send-up of the Hans Christian Andersen story of a forlorn prince (here named Prince Dauntless) who is unable to find a suitable princess to be his wife. One day a bedraggled woman (called Winnifred here) arrives at the castle, sopping wet after swimming through the moat. She claims to be a princess from a faraway swampy kingdom, but she’s not the typical demure royal; rather she’s an exuberant eccentric with a mind of her own.

Dauntless is immediately smitten, unlike his mother the queen who refuses to believe Winnifred could be a legitimate princess. She devises a test, placing a pea under the 20 mattresses Winnifred will sleep on. Of course, Winnifred passes the test and, as in all fairy tales, she and the prince live happily ever after.

Image by Amanda Tipton Photography

The fundamental success of Mattress depends on the appeal of the three main characters – Winnifred, Dauntless and the prickly queen. In Aléna Watters, EJ Dohring and Joanie Brosseau-Rubald, Director Kenny Moten has cast three actors who are entirely believable in their respectively ridiculous roles and play off each other with gusto. All three are veterans of Arvada Center musicals and all are stars in their own right, but it’s Watters as Winnifred who has the meatiest role. As she cavorts around the stage, she effortlessly sings and dances her way into Dauntless’ heart, and ours.

Also deserving of special mention in this stellar cast is Colin Alexander as the mute King Septimus. The henpecked Septimus manages to find ways to subvert his controlling queen with various antics and Alexander offers a tour de force performance. With his hilarious facial expressions and full-body sight gags, Alexander had me practically falling off my seat with laughter.

Moten is to be congratulated for keeping the humor inherent in Once Upon a Mattress sufficiently in hand that we can appreciate the calisthenics without being overwhelmed by the silliness that is at the core of this infrequently produced little gem of a musical.