“Once Upon a Mattress” at the Hudson Theatre (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Like the stack of mattresses Queen Aggravain assembles to test Princess Winnifred, the Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress at the Hudson Theatre is soft and comfortable. But like the pea Aggravain places under those mattresses, there are some pesky lumps amid its pleasures. 

A transfer from City Center’s Encores! concert series, the production is simple in production value and ideas, but even in its low-fi trappings, scenic designer David Zinn and costume designer Andrea Hood are able to keep things interesting and dynamic. Zinn’s set (what little of it there is) is cast entirely in black and white, while Hood’s costumes pop in jewel-toned color. This approach keeps the performers front-and-center at all times – ideal when there’s little else to see.

Mary Rodgers’ music and Marshall Barer’s lyrics have occasional moments of inspiration, but the score, in its 65 years, hasn’t generated much heat. Obviously, Winnifred’s introductory number “Shy” is a classic and her Act II solo “Happily Every After” is enjoyable,  but those two moments are not enough to carry the remaining twelve songs. Sure, the rest of them have some snippets that perk up the ear and the whole show is ably performed by some great Broadway talent, but the score is mostly pleasant and that’s all.

So why revive it? Well, that’s easy: it’s a star vehicle and the perfect showcase of what Sutton Foster likes to do. It lets her ham it up with extended bits of physical comedy and shout-belting. No one can say she doesn’t have presence, but whether that presence is to your liking is a separate conversation. Because the part is such a perfect fit for Foster’s schtick, it’s the best performance she’s given since 2016’s Sweet Charity.

Foster coasts on her star persona and outsized charisma, which is fine, but is it really acting? She sometimes drops the mugging and makes a sincere face and I guess that reveals something genuine under the madcap exterior. But her performance often feels like Sutton’s Comedy Hour instead of Once Upon a Mattress. 

Her co-star, Michael Urie, has a similar bag of tricks, but the way he employs them is entirely different. Urie has developed a vocal performance pattern – dropping or jumping octaves and elongating words – that shows up every time he’s onstage. But Urie finds a way to turn those tics into a believable character. Here, his Dauntless talks that way because he’s a man-child under the thumb of his domineering mother (an excellent Ana Gasteyer). He engages in so-stupid-it’s-funny physical comedy sparingly, but when his Dauntless can’t even figure out how to climb a short set of stairs, it’s both silly and dramatically justified.

Compare that to when Foster, atop the pile of mattresses and struggling to get comfortable, begins to Charleston, bent over, with her butt facing the audience. People laugh, but it’s not comedy in service of the character or the dramatic event. It’s comedy for comedy’s sake.

Director Lear deBessonet’s staging keeps the action front-and-center, which is effective, if a little boring. The secondary characters are uniformly great, including Gasteyer, a charming David Patrick Kelly as her silent husband, and a confident Daniel Breaker as the Jester, essentially our Master of Ceremonies. Nikki Renée Daniels is always a delight and her gorgeous voice is once again a highlight. Brooks Ashmanskas, also not usually one to choose subtlety, here gives an easy and hilarious performance as the Queen’s wizard/co-conspirator. 

This revival of Once Upon a Mattress has plenty of things to like. I did laugh and I would say I had a good time. It’s a perfectly fine off-season show after the crush of openings last spring and before the wave this fall. Maybe that’s all you need.