Tag Archives: Jack Gilford

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

Sutton Foster is an unstoppable force of nature in Once Upon a Mattress (photo by Joan Marcus)

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
Hudson Theatre
141 West Forty-Fourth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 30, $89-$389
onceuponamattressnyc.com

Sutton Foster makes an entrance for the ages in Lear deBessonet and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s delightful revival of Once Upon a Mattress, which opened tonight at the Hudson Theatre for a limited run through November 30.

In 2022, deBessonet made her Broadway directorial debut with a spectacular, streamlined adaptation of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale mashup, Into the Woods, which transferred from the popular “Encores!” series at City Center to the St. James. She should have another smash hit on her hands with her spectacular, streamlined adaptation of another fairytale classic, Once Upon a Mattress, the Tony-nominated 1959 show featuring music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and a book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer, adapted here by Sherman-Palladino, the six-time Emmy-winning creator, writer, and producer of such series as Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Bunheads, which starred Foster.

Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1835 story “The Princess and the Pea,” Mattress is set “many moons ago,” in a medieval castle where Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) is seeking a bride to become princess of the land. However, his strict mother, Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer), has devised impossible tests for his suitors, as she doesn’t want her son to be betrothed. Meanwhile, his father, King Sextimus the Silent (David Patrick Kelly), has nothing to say on the matter, as he cannot speak because of a curse that can only be lifted when “the mouse devours the hawk.” Even if he could talk, it is unlikely he would be able to get a word in edgewise with his powerful, domineering wife.

The queen’s dismissal of princess after princess has a terrible impact on her subjects; no one else can marry until Prince Dauntless has been led to the altar. The law particularly hurts Lady Larken (Nikki Renée Daniels), who will be the new princess’s lady-in-waiting. Lady Larken is pregnant and is desperate to wed her true love, the handsome, brave, and not very bright Sir Harry (Will Chase), Chivalric Knight of the Herald, before she starts showing. Sir Harry — and his jangling spurs, which he is obsessed with — heads out to find a princess. And what a princess he brings back.

King Sextimus the Silent (David Patrick Kelly) and Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) oversee the potential marriage of their son, Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone (Foster) is everything the queen despises. She’s dressed in muddy rags, her hair is a mess, she’s utterly uncouth, and she is covered in leeches and other surprising creatures, as she swam the moat and climbed the wall to enter the castle. “What on earth are you?” the disgusted queen says to Winnifred. The princess wriggles around as if something is on her body and asks the queen, “It feels weird. Is it weird?” Queen Aggravain responds, “For you? I’m going to say no.”

In a role originated by Carol Burnett and later played by such other comedic actors as Dody Goodman, Jo Anne Worley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andrea Martin, Tracey Ullman, and Jackie Hoffman, Foster holds nothing back. She romps across the stage with infectious glee, singing, dancing, and telling jokes, a seeming free spirit who Dauntless is instantly smitten with, even as she claims, “Despite the impression I give, / I confess that I’m living a lie, / because I’m actually terribly timid, and horribly shy.” She continues her hilarious high jinks through to the adorable finale.

But before Fred, as she prefers to be called, can marry Dauntless, she has to pass the queen’s toughest test yet by proving she has the sensitivity of royalty. “Sensitivity, sensitivity, / I’m just loaded with that!” the queen tells her wizard (Brooks Ashmanskas). / “In this one word is / the epitome of the aristocrat / sensitive soul and sensitive stomach, / sensitive hands and feet. / This is the blessing, also the curse / of being the true elite. / Common people don’t know what / exquisite agony is / suffered by gentle people / like me!”

As the jester (Daniel Breaker), who serves as the narrator of the show, informed the audience at the beginning, the test will involve twenty down mattresses and a tiny pea.

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone (Sutton Foster) creates havoc after swimming a moat and climbing a castle wall (photo by Joan Marcus)

As with deBessonet’s Into the Woods, which was nominated for six Tonys, including Best Director and Best Revival of a Musical, Once Upon a Mattress is great fun, although the show lacks some of the serious edges that make Woods so special, instead concentrating on inspired goofiness. Two-time Tony winner Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes) is a force of nature, a whirling dervish of id; every bone and muscle in her body gets in on the action — and you might never look at a bowl of grapes the same way again. Urie (The Government Inspector, Buyer & Cellar) could not be any more charming as the prince, a man-child who has not learned how to walk up steps yet and doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. Just watching Urie’s and Foster’s eyes are worth the price of admission.

SNL veteran Gasteyer (The Rocky Horror Show, Wicked) is phenomenal as the nasty Queen Aggravain, nailing the Mamalogue; Tony nominee Chase (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Nice Work If You Can Get It) has a ball portraying the dimwitted Sir Harry; Tony nominees Ashmanskas (Shuffle Along, Something Rotten!) and Breaker (Passing Strange, Shrek) form a fine duo as the wizard and the jester, who knows his secret; Kelly (An Enemy of the People, The Warriors) is wacky as the king, portrayed over the years by Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton, Milo O’Shea, Tom Smothers, and David Greenspan; and Daniels (Company, The Book of Mormon) is sweet and lovable as the endearing Lady Larken.

David Zinn keeps it simple with his set, consisting of vaguely medieval beribboned poles and family-crest-style banners slyly referenceing New York City; the orchestra plays in the back of the stage, performing Bruce Coughlin’s enchanting orchestrations. Lorin Lotarro’s playful choreography keeps up the often-frenetic pace, while Andrea Hood’s costumes add elegant color, all superbly lit by Justin Townsend, with expert sound by Kai Harada.

Sir Harry (Will Chase) and Lady Larken (Nikki Renée Daniels) share only part of their story with Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) and Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Not everything works. Several songs feel extraneous, a handful of comic moments are repeated, and a few bows are left untied — the show could probably be trimmed down to a tight hundred minutes without intermission instead of two hours and twenty minutes with a break. But who’s to complain when that means more time with Foster and Urie, delivering such lines as “Alas! A lass is what I lack. / I lack a lass; alas! Alack!??” and “In my soul is the beauty of the bog. / In my mem’ry the magic of the mud.”

Early on, the jester asks, “What is a genuine princess?” It’s a question that relates more than ever to the state of the world in the twenty-first century. And one deBessonet, Sherman-Palladino, and Foster go a long way toward redefining.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE INCIDENT WITH DIRECTOR LARRY PEERCE IN PERSON

Tony Musante terrorizes Bea Bridges and others aboard a New York City subway train in THE INCIDENT

Joe Ferrone (Tony Musante) terrorizes Pfc. Felix Teflinger (Beau Bridges) and others aboard a New York City subway train in THE INCIDENT

THE INCIDENT (Larry Peerce, 1967)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, November 3, $7, 11:00 am
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

One of the ultimate nightmare scenarios of 1960s New York City, Larry Peerce’s gritty black-and-white The Incident takes viewers deep down into the subway as two thugs terrorize a group of helpless passengers. Joe Ferrante (Tony Musante) and Artie Connors (Martin Sheen, in his first movie role) are out for kicks, so after getting some out on the streets, they head underground, where they find a wide-ranging collection of twentieth-century Americans to torture, including Arnold and Joan Robinson (Brock Peters and Ruby Dee), Bill and Helen Wilks (Ed McMahon and Diana Van der Vlis), Sam and Bertha Beckerman (Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter, in her last role), Douglas McCann (Gary Merrill), Muriel and Harry Purvis (Jan Sterling and Mike Kellin), Alice Keenan (Donna Mills), soldiers Felix Teflinger and Phillip Carmatti (Beau Bridges and Robert Bannard), and others, each representing various aspects of contemporary culture and society, all with their own personal problems that come to the surface as the harrowing ride continues. It’s a brutal, claustrophobic, highly theatrical film that captures the fear that haunted the city in the 1960s and well into the ’70s, with an all-star cast tackling such subjects as racism, teen sex, alcoholism, homosexuality, war, and the state of the American family. A DCP restoration of the rarely shown drama, some of which was filmed in the actual subway system against the MTA’s warnings, is screening April 26 at Film Forum, with the Bronx-born Peerce, who made such other films as A Separate Peace, Two-Minute Warning, The Bell Jar, and Goodbye, Columbus, on hand to discuss the work.

BARBARA FELDON: ALWAYS IN CONTROL! 50 YEARS OF GET SMART

Barbara Feldon will be at Theatre St. Marks on September 16 to help celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of GET SMART

Theatre 80 St. Marks
80 St. Marks Pl. between First & Second Aves.
Wednesday, September 16, $25-$50, 7:00
212-388-0388
theatre80.wordpress.com
www.wouldyoubelieve.com

Would you believe that Get Smart is turning fifty years old? On September 18, 1965, NBC premiered a new television series starring comedian Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, an ingenious combination of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, and Barbara Feldon as his partner, the lovely and patient Agent 99. Together they formed a kind of alternate version of John Steed and Emma Peel from the hit British show The Avengers. On September 16, 2015, Feldon, who earned two Emmy nominations for her role, will be at Theatre 80 St. Marks to celebrate the golden anniversary of Get Smart, sharing inside stories in a benefit for the HoFoPro (Howard Otway and Florence Otway Opportunity) Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “the promotion and development of theater by making grants to artists and artistic companies needing funds to complete their projects and providing a venue for the performance of their works.” Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the Cold War spy spoof, which pitted the good guys of CONTROL against the nasty villains of KAOS, also featured Edward Platt as the put-upon Chief, Bernie Kopell as evil mastermind Siegfried, Robert Karvelas as the hapless Larabee, Victor French as Agent 44, Dick Gautier as Hymie the Robot, and an endless stream of guest stars and up-and-comers, from Jack Gilford, James Caan, Ernest Borgnine, Don Rickles, Alice Ghostley, Billy Barty, Ted Knight, and Leonard Nimoy to Carol Burnett, Farley Granger, Larry Storch, Tom Bosley, Cesar Romero, Maury Wills, Julie Newmar, Broderick Crawford, Wally Cox, Milton Berle, Phyllis Diller, and Hugh Hefner. The show, which inspired the cartoon series Inspector Gadget, spawned such catchphrases as “Would you believe,” “Sorry about that, Chief,” and “Missed it by that much,” and introduced the world to the shoe phone and the Cone of Silence, ran for five seasons (four on NBC, the last on CBS) and won seven Emmy Awards, including twice for Outstanding Comedy Series. Feldon, whose character never revealed her real name (in one episode it is given as Susan Hilton, but it’s a ruse), will be joined by Joseph Sirola, who appeared in the episodes “Bronzefinger” and “Satan Place,” Get Smart experts Carl Birkmeyer and Nathan Sears, film journalist Lee Pfeiffer, and cinema historian Paul Scrabo. “A lot of women have said 99 was a role model for them. Because she was smart and always got the right answer,” Feldon says in The Get Smart Handbook. “And that was one of the first roles on television that showed women that way.” It should be quite a special treat to see Feldon talk about this all-time classic; unfortunately, Adams is no longer with us, having passed away in 2005 at the age of eighty-two.

RETRO METRO: THE INCIDENT

A group of straphangers are terrorized by thugs in Larry Peerce’s THE INCIDENT

THE INCIDENT (Larry Peerce, 1967)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, October 3, 4:30 & 9:15
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

One of the ultimate nightmare scenarios of 1960s New York City, Larry Peerce’s gritty black-and-white The Incident takes viewers deep down into the subway as two thugs terrorize a group of helpless passengers. Joe Ferrante (Tony Musante) and Artie Connors (Martin Sheen, in his first movie role) are out for kicks, so after getting some out on the streets, they head underground, where they find a wide-ranging collection of twentieth-century Americans to torture, including Arnold and Joan Robinson (Brock Peters and Ruby Dee), Bill and Helen Wilks (Ed McMahon and Diana Van der Vlis), Sam and Bertha Beckerman (Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter, in her last role), Douglas McCann (Gary Merrill), Muriel and Harry Purvis (Jan Sterling and Mike Kellin), Alice Keenan (Donna Mills), soldiers Felix Teflinger and Phillip Carmatti (Beau Bridges and Robert Bannard), and others, each representing various aspects of contemporary culture and society, all with their own personal problems that come to the surface as the harrowing ride continues. It’s a brutal, claustrophobic, highly theatrical film that captures the fear that haunted the city in the 1960s and well into the ’70s, with an all-star cast tackling such subjects as racism, teen sex, alcoholism, homosexuality, war, and the state of the American family. The rarely shown drama, some of which was filmed in the actual subway system against the MTA’s warnings, is screening October 3 at BAMcinématek as part of “Retro Metro,” a ten-day festival of sixteen films with key scenes set underground.

CHARACTER MAN

Jim Brochu looks back at his long life in musical theater in CHARACTER MAN (photo by Carol Rosegg)

30th Street Theatre at Urban Stages
359 West 30th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Wednesday – Monday through April 6, $35
212-868-4444
www.jimbrochu.com
www.urbanstages.org

Award-winning actor and playwright Jim Brochu pays tribute to the Broadway character actors of old in his charming one-man show, Character Man. Brochu, who won a Drama Desk Award for his previous solo presentation, Zero Hour, in which he portrayed Zero Mostel, this time tells his own story, about growing up in the theater surrounded by such character actors as Jack Gilford, Lou Jacobi, Jack Albertson, George S. Irving, Barney Martin, Jack Klugman, Robert Preston, and his mentor and longtime friend, two-time Tony winner Davy Burns. As Brochu shares intimate tales of his childhood and career, with a focus on his relationship with his father — including how Joan Crawford almost became his stepmother — old photos and video appear on three screens hanging from the ceiling. Brochu moves across the small stage, relaxing in a red theater seat (that matches his tie and pocket square), sitting at a dressing-room makeup table, or walking to the back, where he mimics selling orange drink at the Alvin Theatre, his first job in show business. Each vignette features a related Broadway tune accompanied by Carl Haan on piano, among them “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, “(Ya Got) Trouble” from The Music Man, the haughty “The Butler’s Song” from the ill-fated So Long, 174th Street, and, perhaps most appropriately, “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago, in which he sings, “And even without clucking like a hen / Everyone gets noticed, now and then / Unless, of course, that personage should be / Invisible, inconsequential me!” Such is the character man’s fate, never to be the famous star, although Brochu has crafted a witty and poignant little musical memoir that deservedly puts him front and center. Character Man continues at Urban Stages through March 30; there will be post-show spotlights the next three Wednesdays, looking at David Burns with Sondra Lee and Lee Roy Reams on March 12, Jack Gilford and Zero Mostel with Joe Gilford and Josh Mostel on March 19, and current character actors with Richard Kind and Tony Sheldon on March 26.

NEW YAWK NEW WAVE: THE INCIDENT

A group of straphangers are terrorized by thugs in Larry Peerce’s THE INCIDENT

THE INCIDENT (Larry Peerce, 1967)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
January 16-17
Series continues through January 31
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.com

One of the ultimate nightmare scenarios of 1960s New York City, Larry Peerce’s gritty black-and-white The Incident takes viewers deep down into the subway as two thugs terrorize a group of helpless passengers. Joe Ferrante (Tony Musante) and Artie Connors (Martin Sheen, in his first movie role) are out for kicks, so after getting some out on the streets, they head underground, where they find a wide-ranging collection of twentieth-century Americans to torture, including Arnold and Joan Robinson (Brock Peters and Ruby Dee), Bill and Helen Wilks (Ed McMahon and Diana Van der Vlis), Sam and Bertha Beckerman (Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter, in her last role), Douglas McCann (Gary Merrill), Muriel and Harry Purvis (Jan Sterling and Mike Kellin), Alice Keenan (Donna Mills), soldiers Felix Teflinger and Phillip Carmatti (Beau Bridges and Robert Bannard), and others, each representing various aspects of contemporary culture and society, all with their own personal problems that come to the surface as the harrowing ride continues. It’s a brutal, claustrophobic, highly theatrical film that captures the fear that haunted the city in the 1960s and well into the ’70s, with an all-star cast tackling such subjects as racism, teen sex, alcoholism, homosexuality, war, and the state of the American family. The rarely shown drama, some of which was filmed in the actual subway system against the MTA’s warnings, is screening at Film Forum January 16-17 in a double feature with Anthony Harvey’s Dutchman as part of the three-week festival “New Yawk New Wave,” comprising seminal independent films made in and about New York City; among the other double features in the series are Jim McBride’s David Holzman’s Diary and Milton Moses Ginsberg’s Coming Apart, Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising and Andy Warhol’s My Hustler, Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Who’s That Knocking at My Door, and Brian De Palma’s Greetings and Hi, Mom!

WILLIAM LUSTIG PRESENTS: THE INCIDENT

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Wednesday, July 20, 7:00, and Sunday, July 24, 9:00
Series continues through July 25
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

One of the ultimate nightmare scenarios of 1960s New York City, Larry Peerce’s gritty black-and-white The Incident takes viewers deep down into the subway as two thugs terrorize a group of helpless passengers. Joe Ferrante (Tony Musante) and Artie Connors (Martin Sheen, in his first movie role) are out for kicks, so after getting some out on the streets, they head underground, where they find a wide-ranging collection of twentieth-century Americans to torture, including Arnold and Joan Robinson (Brock Peters and Ruby Dee), Bill and Helen Wilks (Ed McMahon and Diana Van der Vlis), Sam and Bertha Beckerman (Jack Gilford and Thelma Ritter, in her last role), Douglas McCann (Gary Merrill), Muriel and Harry Purvis (Jan Sterling and Mike Kellin), Alice Keenan (Donna Mills), soldiers Felix Teflinger and Phillip Carmatti (Beau Bridges and Robert Bannard), and others, each representing various aspects of contemporary culture and society, all with their own personal problems that come to the surface as the harrowing ride continues. It’s a brutal, claustrophobic, highly theatrical film that captures the fear that haunted the city in the 1960s and well into the ’70s, with an all-star cast tackling such subjects as racism, teen sex, alcoholism, homosexuality, war, and the state of the American family. The rarely shown drama, some of which was filmed in the actual subway system against the MTA’s warnings, is screening July 20 & 24 as part of Anthology Film Archives’ annual summer series “William Lustig Presents,” consisting of lesser-known selections from director, actor, producer, and 2009 New York City Horror Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award winner Bill Lustig. The Bronx-born creator of Maniac, Maniac Cop, and Vigilante and CEO of Blue Underground, which distributes exploitation and grindhouse flicks on DVD, has also chosen such films as Richard Fleischer’s The Last Run, Michael Tuchner’s Villain and Fear Is the Key, James Frawley’s Kid Blue, and William Friedkin’s The Brink’s Job, starring the late Peter Falk; the series continues through July 25.