Here is yet another jukebox musical about female empowerment. The theme is certainly welcome but when it comes in repetitive wave after wave, the redundancy becomes numbing (not to mention the box office cannibalization). Some of these shows are very good (& Juliet). Some are not (Bad Cinderella). Once Upon a One More Time is a mixed bag but I enjoyed myself immensely.
The concept takes the Britney Spears catalog and attempts to reposition historical fairy tale female stereotypes. Those characters include Cinderella (again!), Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Princess Pea and the Little Mermaid. They have a reading club (really) so they’re not just pretty! The underdeveloped book (Jon Hartmere) bizarrely places these empowered women as less central than those who dominate them. If you can move on from the slight storyline, major fun can be had.
The show is a cavalcade of hits which sound arena loud and are well orchestrated. Keone and Mari Madrid are the husband and wife team who directed and choreographed this production. The dancing is fresh, exciting and energetically staged. Having seen many Broadway jukebox shows over the past five years, these two creatives bring something new and visual interesting to savor. I might even call it a TikTok sensibility and far more up-to-date than most mainstream offerings.
There are some excellent performances. The notorious scene stealing Jennifer Simard portrays the Stepmother. She is “Toxic”. That Act II number – and her deadpan delivery – is one of this musical biggest highlights. Adam Godley’s Narrator is an evil delight as he tries to keep the rebelling ladies acting as originally conceived. Brooke Dillman’s O.F.G. (Original Fairy Godmother) is a hoot.
The home run hitter in this musical is Justin Guarini as Prince Charming. Apparently all these princesses have figured out that there is only one of him and many of them (wink, wink The Book of Mormon still running). His role is large, his singing and dancing are excellent and his self-absorbed male egotism is unctuously smarmy.
Some of the ladies are quite good and I enjoyed Briga Heelan’s quietly transformational take on Cinderella. A few others, however, fall short of the mark but not helped by so very little to say and do. As a result, the feminist theme is off kilter. Referencing Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique book from 1963 is likely a head scratcher for most of the audience.
Of course this being today’s Broadway there is a gay subplot tossed in. You can probably guess that princesses come in many varieties. This addition is like many others where there is a perfunctory nod to shoving a gay couple onto the stage with almost no real context. Oops, they did it again.
Once Upon a One More Time is a big, splashy, colorful spectacle. Drinks are recommended as this one’s a party. I don’t listen to Britney Spears’s songs often so I found them to be a nostalgic treat. One of the best moments in the show is a fabulous “Circus”. The prince brags “all eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus”. Like the fairy tale sources they want to escape, these princesses are kinda second fiddle once upon a one more time.
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