Once Upon a Mattress

When I first met Karli as Louisa in Ring Around Rosalie, we weren’t super close. In fact, I couldn’t really comfortably speak to her without doing a bit.

In the play, I was Daniel Rafferty, CPA, Louisa’s soon to be husband so most of the bits we did revolved around me being comically overprotective of her and our ‘relationship’ and being extremely bad at hiding my ‘affection’. Stuff like Spats flirting with her and I then chasing Spats around backstage, or me doing the pretend yawning thing to put my arm around her but in the most obvious way humanly possible.

Anyway, this time me and her were The Minstrel and The Wizard respectively, and we interacted much more backstage than before. I’m assuming the reason I felt more comfortable around her this time was because of the game night we and a lot of the cast of Ring Around Rosalie had a short while into the production of the current musical, Once Upon a Mattress.

The first time we talked extensively, if I’m remembering correctly, was about Miles: Mr. Bellarosa in the last play and Sir Harry in the current one. We were complaining about all the stuff he did that annoyed us, like his ego, and also just some generally funny things about him, like how often he snaps his fingers.

Now, this is the first musical I’ve done with Charla as the director. The other one I’ve done at the high school was directed by Dave, her (I’m assuming) husband. Most of the people I’ve talked to about them figure that Charla’s much more suited to working with the crew than with the cast, whereas Dave is the opposite. Karli and I agree.

After complaining to each other about Miles, it felt only natural to complain to each other about Charla’s directing. We disagreed about a lot of the stuff that she did. For example, if you came to her about a characterization issue you had, she’d just tell you to do whatever you want, but later, if you told her about an issue you had with how something in choreography contradicts the characterization you had, she’d say to just do it anyway and that she’d sort it out later. It’s through those mutual complaints that Karli and I actually became friends.

For a while, the show felt very rough and still uncomfortable to perform and rehearse. That trend continued all the way up until tech week when suddenly basically everyone got into the groove of the show and the whole thing finally came together.

Until that point, I was having trouble with the characterization of The Minstrel. He’s supposed to be the narrator of the story, yet he only narrates twice in the entire play. He’s in love with The Lady Larken yet also in the opening song, dances with two ladies instead of just her; that being one of the examples of Charla’s odd directing choices I mentioned earlier.

As a character, The Minstrel just felt extremely underdeveloped, and I felt that if they hadn’t needed narration to explain what happened while Harry was away, he probably would have no need to exist. The Jester and King could’ve easily worked without The Minstrel in the plot at all. The only problem I could see with that is that it might be a little boring to have the majority of the Jester and King scenes to just be one person talking, but The Jester and The Minstrel don’t interact much as is anyway.

Thankfully, once I added in a British accent, the character was able to form around it. His bright orange outfit (which I specifically didn’t ask for, but I’ll get to that later) made him feel like a bombastic sort of pompous character, with an inflated ego. Paired with the choreography in the opening number, I was able to turn him into sort of a ladies’ man archetype. That way, by the time we get to the scene where The Queen reveals Lady Larken beneath the disguise, The Minstrel gets to have his confidence tested which feels super narratively satisfying.

Now, about the clothing. Malle was doing something very cool near the beginning of the production. They would go around to each cast member and survey them about what they wanted their character to wear. It was meant to make it look like each character actually dressed themself instead of being dressed by a costume designer with all the same style choices. Of course, she wasn’t expecting them to be done completely as requested, but she never expected them not to be used at all.

Early in the production of the play, Malle was kicked out for having insufficient grades and, instead of keeping the giant sheet she’d made featuring all of the costumes the cast designed from their interviews, Charla decided to just get completely random costumes. I, for example, asked for an earthy green color pallet. I was given a bright orange and beige one instead. Karli asked for blue and gold. She was given purple and white, which, I’ll admit, is closer to blue and gold than green is to orange, but the point remains. She asked for a wizard hat and wasn’t given one. Instead, one of the ladies got one similar to that.

The day of the play, most of the cast was told good luck several times. I’ll be honest, I said it to Collin around twelve of those times and got Kyler to say it to him as well. That, paired with a worryingly good dress rehearsal, led to a few people believing it’d go terribly.

It didn’t, but still.

On closing night, we did the last of the senior speeches and, despite saying the previous day that I felt vindicated that Karli hadn’t cried as well during the speeches, I cried my eyes out at Collin’s. I don’t know what it is about it, it just made me so, so sad that I’d never do another play with Collin. I cried for like twenty minutes before the show.

Since everyone was so sad just before the show, it started off pretty terribly. Everyone was out of it and the audience seemed tough to crack. But then, miraculously, halfway through the first act, everybody just locked in and did the best show we’ve ever done.

Dixie, Karli and I were all doing improv in our scenes, Collin performed the ‘shut up, mom’ speech in the last scene, the audience was going crazy the entire time, and it was just great in general.

Even though Karli and I didn’t really enjoy the play that much, it was the only play I’ve been in that my younger brother actually enjoyed. Usually, he hates the plays I’m in, but for whatever reason Once Upon a Mattress spoke to him.