Friday, February 26, 1999
Once Upon A Mattress
MUSIC: Carol Brunett brings comedy and music to the stage once
again
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
They hired vocal coaches. They vowed to lose weight. They
arranged their class schedules so they would have ample time to
work with her. The buzz in UCLA’s Musical Theater Workshop centered
on one name: Carol Burnett.
The comedic actress is central to one of the school’s most
beloved legends– a benefactor saw promise in an early performance
and gave her $1000 to jump start her career on the condition that
she never reveal his identity and that she return the favor
someday. She has been doing just that for 20 years, via the annual
campus competition that bears her name.
"Every year at the Carol Burnett Awards everyone begs and pleads
and wonders why Carol is never there when she’s giving so much
money," says senior theater student Teresa Marie Sanchez. "Finally
we got her on campus…I asked her, ‘What can we do to twist your
arm? How can we get you to do something at school? Preferably "Once
Upon a Mattress."’"
The goofy, spoofy musical launched Burnett’s career when it
opened on Broadway 40 years ago. Now, as students prepare for its
Friday opening at Schoenberg Hall, they can’t help but speculate
about the production and its guest director as a sort of fairy
godmother vehicle.
Burnett– famous for her cacophonous laugh, Tarzan yell and
approachable brand of anti-glamour– would be an unlikely occupant
for such a role by most fairy tale standards. But "Mattress"
centers on a princess who snores, guzzles from her goblet and
spells atrociously. Burnett’s presence is a casual one, then, as
she calls out the occasional suggestion and greeting from the
auditorium’s back rows.
She doesn’t consider the stir her visit may have caused. Were
young performers intimidated?
"I hope not," Burnett says. She muses, "Because I did it, that
could be a little intimidating. But I hope not."
Not now that the cast has solidified, focusing on lighting
logistics and the challenge of jitterbugging an extremely fast,
extremely silly dance known as the "Spanish Panic." But after
months of grooming themselves for the opportunity, students found
auditions both competitive and, well, daunting.
"(Producer and professor) John Hall says, ‘All Dauntlesses come
in,’" recalls Mike Shapiro, the third year physiological sciences
major who eventually landed the role of Prince Dauntless "the Drab"
opposite Sanchez’s Winnifred the Woe-Begone. "You have the whole
side section of Jan Popper theater– there are like 18 people– all
getting up to sing, ‘Boy. Flower…’"
Shapiro and his fellow students sang these opening lines of "Man
to Man Talk" at an unusual plethora of callbacks. Burnett finally
settled on a double cast, with separate leads for each weekend of
the production’s run.
"Double the work for her, half the work for us," Shapiro
summarizes.
Burnett, who recently put in typical 12-hour rehearsals for the
Mark Taper Forum’s "Putting it Together," doesn’t see her current
schedule as quite so grueling.
"In the real world, it’s a lot tougher– twice this. But then
again, the kids do have their school work. They’ve been working
hard as far as I’m concerned," Burnett says.
Workshop members describe rehearsals with the dreamy, anxious
array of emotion inherent to working with an icon.
"The first three quarters of the whole process I was walking on
eggshells because I was trying to uphold this professional
attitude, but after a while I realized I should just have fun, and
that’s when the show started coming together," Shapiro says.
"She’ll get up there and give an example of what she wants for
Winnifred and I’ll get to do a scene with her and she’s just
amazing. She’s one of the best comedians in the industry."
Sanchez emphasizes that Burnett, while willingly hands-on, isn’t
out to create Carol Juniors. It’s hard not to hear a bit of
Burnett’s aw-shucks charm in the monologues of second weekend
Winnifred Maria Eberline. Yet the soprano voice which carries
"Fred" through the musical numbers is all her own.
Years in comedy have taught Burnett that making an audience
laugh means exuding a contagious feeling of ease.
"The first thing I said to them was, ‘I want input from you. I
want to know that you’re comfortable. Otherwise it’s not going to
look good,’" Burnett says.
Comparisons with last winter’s production, Stephen Sondheim’s
"Into the Woods," seem inevitable, given that both deliver fairy
tales with grown-up appeal. Those familiar with both attest to
Sondheim’s lyrical depth and melodic difficulty.
"(‘Into the Woods’) is one of my favorite musicals in the
world," Burnett says. "I just wept. You’re not going to weep at
this. We hope you’ll laugh. That’s the point of this. ‘Mattress’ is
froth. And you know what? There’s a place in this world for
froth."
Froth is not always easy to execute, however. Though the score
by Sondheim’s longtime friend Mary Rodgers may not flit madly about
in the upper registers, "Mattress’s" strategy lies in its
staging.
"I would say that because it’s a comedy, it’s lighter, more fun.
Easy, I would not say," attests senior political science student
Tom McMahon, who plays the queen’s wizardly partner in crime.
The workshop has elicited help from an impressive entourage of
outside influences, from "Carol Burnett Show" collaborator Don
Crichton to CBS studios (which donated a lush new curtain, among
other props), in addition to UCLA regulars. They’ve added music
previously seen only in the TV versions of "Mattress" and Burnett
says that the result is at times more impressive than the
original.
Taking a conspicuous back seat in all of this is John Hall, who
exchanged his director’s hat for a producer’s so his students, many
of whom he’s coached for years, could work with an outsider.
"This has been a hard experience for him, letting his babies go
and work with someone else," Sanchez says.
Burnett, who came to UCLA assuming she would major in journalism
only to discover the school offered no such major, can’t help but
look back on her own student years, including her fateful choice of
a theater arts/English major. The cast is aware that the workshop
as they now know it may become increasingly fragile as the new
musical theater major (part of the theater department, as opposed
to music) gains momentum.
Here Burnett admits her administrative ignorance, but adds, "I
wish they would all merge, quite frankly."
A motif of leaving the nest seems to pervade Schoenberg, as
professionals and students mill about between the cushioned seats,
mingling and exchanging notes during a crowded dress rehearsal.
Prince Dauntless escapes his mother’s dominion. Winnifred ventures
from her cherished swampy homeland to seek out a future. And cast
members, many on the brink of graduation, know that the upcoming
weekends are something of an audition themselves.
"You never know who’s sitting in the audience," Shapiro says.
"(Burnett) has all of these friends in the biz and all it takes is
for one person to go, ‘Hey, why don’t you come and do this bit for
us on this show.’ It could start your career."
THEATER: "Once Upon a Mattress" opened Friday at Schoenberg
Hall. Tickets are $15, $8 for students. Call (310) 825-2101.
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