Quote of the Day (Mary Rodgers, on Carol Burnett in ‘Once Upon a Mattress’)

“She showed up at [lyricist] Marshall [Barer’s] within the hour, looking terrific: long-legged, great figure, huge smile, flawless skin, glorious red hair. She sang and, as I’ve said many times, could have been heard in Brooklyn. But it wasn't just the volume that made her voice incredible — and in fact her range wasn’t that enormous. It was her flexibility. She could break suddenly from melody into her hilarious hog-calling hoots which didn't have any particular note in them but suggested immense fun and eagerness and strength and health. For me there was no question that she was exactly right, but that there was one problem: She was too attractive. Our Princess was supposed to look like a bedraggled blob. ‘What's the ugliest, most repulsive piece of wardrobe in your closet?’ we asked. Carol said she had a really icky, olive brown suit that didn't fit very well. We told her to show up at 10 o’clock on Friday morning at the Phoenix Theatre—and wear that suit.”— American composer, screenwriter, and novelist Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) and Jesse Green, Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers (2022)

This week, the musical revival Once Upon a Mattress transferred from a run at New York City Center Encores to Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, with Tony winner Sutton Foster as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone.

I don’t want to take anything away from Ms. Sutton; she’s not one of the current queens of musical comedy for nothing. (I myself can attest to her skill, having seen her in Anything Goes and Violet.)

Even so, she’s going to have a tough time making anyone forget the woman who originated the role, Carol Burnett (pictured here with her then-costar,  Joe Bova).

When it opened Off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre in May 1959, Once Upon a Mattress was, for Ms. Burnett, what Funny Girl proved to be Barbra Streisand: a career-maker for a young singer-actress with such comic, vocal, and physical resources that any successors would inevitably suffer by comparison.

Anyone playing the princess (a comic version of the title character of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea”) would have to be, Ms. Rodgers noted, “a real clown with a great voice, someone with a human personality but immediately likable”—and Sarah Jessica Parker, she explained, only had the likability part when she appeared in the 1996 revival.

In a CBS' "Sunday Morning" segment this past weekend, Ms. Sutton paid suitable homage to Ms. Burnett, as she should. But I couldn't help thinking, after seeing old clips of Ms. Burnett, that Ms. Sutton, 23 years older than the Broadway and TV legend was when she first tackled the role, is going to have to find a far different route into it.

By the way, you really ought to read Shy (the title, fans of Once Upon a Mattress knows, derives from a highlight of the musical). Besides this great description of Ms. Burnett, the chapter on Ms. Rodgers’ most successful work gives the kind of juicy backstage gossip and drama that Broadway fans will love, including how director George Abbott preferred creating a new star (Ms. Burnett) to using an established one (Nancy Walker).

There’s similar great (and often hilarious) stuff on Stephen Sondheim, Judy Holliday, Woody Allen, Hal Prince, and, of course, the father who cast such a large, intimidating shadow over her life, Richard Rodgers.