Review: Jackie Hoffman Shines In The Star's Spotlight In ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

There's an unfamiliar sound coming out of Jackie Hoffman's voice as she launches into her first number in Transport Group's comic dynamo of a revival of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS. Believe it or not, it sounds like sincerity.

Oh, there's no shortage of big laughs when one of Broadway's funniest supporting clowns gets the full leading lady treatment in director Jack Cummings III's deliciously raucous production of Mary Rodgers (music), Marshall Barer (book and lyrics), Dean Fuller (book) and Jay Thompson's (book) 1959 Broadway entry taken from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Princess and The Pea."

As Princess Winnifred, the less-than-glamorous royal from the swamps who falls for the nerdy and boyish Prince Dauntless, much to the chagrin of his domineering mother, Queen Aggravain, Hoffman does her usual job of nailing scripted gags (and adding a few of her own) with a blunt delivery that can exhume dark humor from rainbow unicorns, but there's also just enough warmth and pathos to have you cheering for Winnifred the character, not just Hoffman the laugh machine.

Carol Burnett was in her 20s when the role launched her into Broadway stardom, but the 55-year-old Hoffman is just right for an era when the prince expected to someday inherit England's throne is approaching his 70s.

But ONCE UPON A MATTRESS is more ensemble piece than star vehicle, and the pint-sized Abrons Arts Center is bursting at the seams with performers loaded with showbiz pizzazz. John Epperson, best known as the drag artist who recreates vintage movie glamour for his persona Lypsinka, plays Queen Aggravain as a virtual checklist of facial expressions, physical poses and line readings that suggest classic moments from the careers of icons like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Gloria Swanson. One of the biggest laughs of the season comes when the Epperson's tall and campilly glamorous Aggravain just stands next to Hoffman's short and dowdy Winnifred.

Jason SweetTooth Williams, best known as one of the hipper muses from composer/lyricist Joe Iconis' crew of regulars, is a lovable dork as Prince Dauntless and downtown favorite David Greenspan is delightfully expressive as his father, King Sextimus, who is cursed with silence.

The audience might still be applauding Cory Lingner's wonderfully joyous song and dance to the Jester's solo, "Very Soft Shoes," had the curtain not been lowered at its conclusion. (Scott Rink supplies the choreography.) Jay Rogers lends his patented off-beat style to the Wizard and the pairing of Jessica Fontana and Zak Resnick sings terrifically as the pregnant Lady Larken and her pompous suiter, Sir Harry, who can't get married until the prince is wed.

A very clever design concept has the popular theatre caricaturist Ken Fallin sitting in the back of the house, and the audience can see his hand sketching finishing touches to location-defining projections.

Conductor Matt Castle's thirteen piece orchestra is larger than what you get in many Broadway productions these days and sounds great from the pit as the cast belts out their numbers with gusto.

Transport Group's ONCE UPON A MATTRESS may be the best reason to venture down to the Lower East Side since Yonah Schimmel learned how to make a knish.

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