Revive This Show: Once Upon a Mattress

Overbearing mothers, children out of wedlock, cheating boyfriends, and sexual frustration. Although this may sound like the predominant themes of the latest Gossip Girl episode, it is in fact a description of one of my favorite musicals of all time: Once Upon A Mattress.

The musical is a comedic retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Princess and the Pea.” While it is incredibly difficult to believe that a princess tale not produced by Disney would have a fighting chance anywhere else, this interpretive version of the classic story finds a way to make it work. What makes Mattress so revivable is its biting sense of humor, wacky cast of characters, and fundamental vivaciousness.

The musical centers on a most unlikely princess, Winnifred the Woebegone, as she competes to marry Prince Dauntless—a sweet but submissive boy whose mother is territorial, to say the least. Queen Aggravaine refuses to be replaced by another woman in her son’s life, so she creates an impossible test for each princess who attempts to woo the heir. Even worse, the queen bans marriage, and consequently sex, throughout the kingdom, complicating the lives of the entire court.

It is telling that Carol Burnett and Sarah Jessica Parker have both played Winnifred on Broadway. While Fred, as the princess likes to be called, is kind and lovely to some, above all else she has chutzpah.

Surprisingly, it is the villain Aggravaine who has the most traditionally royal characteristics: grace and eloquence. Even Lady Larken, arguably the most feminine character in the show, eventually dresses up as a man in order to escape the court. Once Upon a Mattress sends the opposite message of its fairy tale predecessors—it prizes spunk, not gentility.

From a feminist perspective, this revival would be fantastic. A show featuring strong female characters, it would also be particularly well-suited to Columbia, where actors are hard to come by.

But without the laugh-out-loud humor that makes Once Upon a Mattress so unique, the message of female empowerment might be lost on an audience. When feminist texts and history books have got you down, why not get lost in a fairy tale world that has you continuously laughing while still getting the point across?