PappyCat
|
Who is your Favorite Character in OUAM?I was wondering who your favorite character is in Once Upon a Mattress? It doesn't have to be the character you played, it can just be one that you related to, or just thought was a really good character!
I'm curious as to who you guys will pick!
|
PappyCat
|
It was a tough decision for me...I was very much torn between Princess Winnifred and Dauntless. I adore Dauntless, I think his character is adorable, and he gets all of my favorite songs...However, I really relate to Fred, and she won out in the end.
|
Salome
|
the jester. great dry humor. and he has the best song.
(btw...i sent you a pm ..)
|
PappyCat
|
I enjoy the Jester, but I REALLY hate "Very Soft Shoes." Most random song, ever!
|
Salome
|
are you kidding??? best song in the piece. and its so touching watching him dance with the shadow of his late father.
best lyrics in the show too.
|
PappyCat
|
I've never seen it performed, so maybe that'll make the difference. I've just always felt that the song game outta nowhere.
Maybe when I see our Jester do it, I'll change my mind. But as of now...bleh.
|
Salome
|
how can you even say that. plus it ties in with his rasther dejected character throughout the show. and there is such excitement when he reaches the part of the song when he sings
"and when he too his bow
to the crowd and the crown
the crown went crazy and the house came down!"
just exhilerating .
the songs i'd cut from the shgow are... Yesterday I Loved You, Swamps of Home (ugh!) and Quiet.
|
PappyCat
|
Yeah, Quiet is lame. The Revival cast jazzed it up a bit, but it's still not super exciting. It's almost like they threw it in because Act 2 was so dang short.
I adore Swamps of Home. Done well, it can really be a piece that moves Winnifred's Character along. Plus, it's so cheesy and mock serious.
I could take or leave "Yesterday I loved You."
|
BEaSTARandSINGlove
|
Winnifred! hands down! one of my dream parts 
|
charlieb2bav
|
my favorite is the jester....and its actually beCAUSE of very soft shoes that i like the jester. when we did it the guy was just so awesome. and...i really like the song....
|
OnceUponATime
|
Aggravain.
The mamalogue. 'Nuff said.
And it's fun to scream "quiet." I heart irony.
|
LaurelDP
|
I love Queen Aggravain.
Yeah, I played her.
I think it's such a funny role... and a great role for an actress to play.
| Quote: | Aggravain.
The mamalogue. 'Nuff said.
And it's fun to scream "quiet." I heart irony. |
I LOVED screaming "Quiet!!!" in my production.
It was my favorite gag, and the audience loved it.
In the one scene after the song "Quiet", when Queen Ag is supposed to yell quiet when Larken and Harry are quarreling, I would yell "QUIET!!" and hold it as long as humanly possible.
One night, after my longest eruption of quiet, my Wizard scribbled on his(her) scroll and shouted: "A New Record!"
|
Beagle On Stage
|
| Salome wrote: | | the songs i'd cut from the shgow are... Yesterday I Loved You, Swamps of Home (ugh!) and Quiet. |
"Swamps of Home" is the worst song in the show. I've never seen a production of "Once Upon a Mattress" where it wasn't boring. It's cute when the girls sing with her, but that's not enough to justify the five minutes wasted on it.
"Quiet" is okay if you don't do the whole thing. One of my productions just had the ladies following the Queen with sheets, pillows, blah blah blah and they went through the refrain once in unison, then went, "Quiet, quiet, quiet," getting softer each time, then the Queen went right into "Please! Sheets..." and they didn't dance, we just sent Larken and the Minstrel across right after "Right, right, right." It got Act 2 opened, but didn't drag on forever with chanting and foot-stomping.
|
OnceUponATime
|
Yeah, our "Quiet" wasn't dragged along, either.
Funny Aggravain story.
Even though I did this with my community theatre, most of the chorus was made up of high schoolers. Actually, most of the actors were high schoolers, but I digress.
We worked on Act I for the first two weeks. Since I only knew one other person in the cast, I didn't interact too much. Then I went on a prearranged vacation for the first week of Act II. I came back to practicing for "Quiet," so their first 'real' interaction with me was that.
I think they were intimidated by me for a bit. 
|
norayouadora
|
Fred is one of my dream roles... Though I agree that "Very Soft Shoes" is probably the best number in the show, I still adore "Happily Ever After" and "Shy," and Fred is a role I can see myself playing perfectly. So yeah, I'm just gonna be selfish and choose the one most like me!
|
PappyCat
|
| Beagle On Stage wrote: | | Salome wrote: | | the songs i'd cut from the shgow are... Yesterday I Loved You, Swamps of Home (ugh!) and Quiet. |
"Swamps of Home" is the worst song in the show. I've never seen a production of "Once Upon a Mattress" where it wasn't boring. It's cute when the girls sing with her, but that's not enough to justify the five minutes wasted on it.
"Quiet" is okay if you don't do the whole thing. One of my productions just had the ladies following the Queen with sheets, pillows, blah blah blah and they went through the refrain once in unison, then went, "Quiet, quiet, quiet," getting softer each time, then the Queen went right into "Please! Sheets..." and they didn't dance, we just sent Larken and the Minstrel across right after "Right, right, right." It got Act 2 opened, but didn't drag on forever with chanting and foot-stomping. |
I agree that Quiet is absolutely worthless...and our version actually cut it about in half.
I love Swamps of Home, though. It was fun to perform and we made it so incredibly cheesy that the audience really dug it. They laughed the entire time.
EDIT: Yeah, I totally wrote almost this exact thing a few months ago when this topic was new. What a terrible memory I have!
|
Lepitot
|
I wouldn't cut Yesterday I Loved You simply for the fact that, even though I hated it, our Larken had an amazing voice and I loved hearing her sing it.
That's funny that you always thought Swamps of Home was boring, because our audiences loved that scene. My favorite Winnifred song was Happily Ever After. I think the audience liked that song the best, too. They clapped and hooted for her when she finished, then the lights went off for the set change and the orchestra played a few more bars of the song, and when the lights came on, the audience started clapping again and nothing was on stage lol.
I don't like Very Soft Shoes as a song...I like the dancing part of it, but I was never fond of the part where the Jester sings.
We tap danced to Soft Shoes, which was sort of ironic. The Jester tap dances while he sang, went off and about ten boys came on tapping. And then after the big tap number, we started to sing "And when he took his bow..." the Jester came on juggling. And he sang, juggled, and tap danced. The crowd LOVED that. It was awesome. There's a short video of it on youtube somewhere. But, I have a better recording of it, I might put it up sometime.
Jon
|
PappyCat
|
Out of all of Fred's songs, I had the hardest time with Happily Ever After...it was always a stretch. I was so in chracter throughout that whole musical that I never felt like I was onstage...it was just Fred doing her thing...but the minute Dauntless left right before Happily Ever After, I'd snap out of it and suddenly remember that I, Leah, was about to sing a song. I managed to do it every night, and the audience liked it, but not as much as "Shy" which they really, really loved.
Very Soft Shoes, while a neat song/dance, comes out of nowhere. Almost everyone in the audience that I'd talk to would say "It was neat, but why was it in the show?"
Every single person I talked to thought that "Song of Love" was the best number in our show. High energy, lots of physical comedy (fat, drunk woman, sloshing around (me) and a great end to Act 1. Our director said that she leaned over the sound booth to watch the audience because they actually shook with laughter during that number. Some people even joined in with "With an F and and R and...etc" towards the end, and one group all even pretended to lift the weight with me. So much fun!
|
Lepitot
|
Yeah, as far as the favorite song goes for comedy, Song of Love won hands down. Heck, even the High School laughed during the preview. That never happens. They cracked up when I started singing, "I like you Fred, I like you." That was great...I loved hearing them crack up.
At the end I did cartwheels like in the movie, and my shoe was just big enough that it would fly off every performance. And my hat would always fall down. And, on the third carthweel (sp?) I would fall down. No one in the audience knew if it was on purpose or if it was an accident. It was a lot of fun.
Oh man, I miss it now.
|
PappyCat
|
I miss it so much, too. I knocked our Dauntless down with the weight, of course, Fred didn't realize she had done it.
I also took the pitcher, which they FILLED with water and 'drank' it on the last verse. Of course, it was so full that it cascaded down my face and dress.
Luckly, I had all of intermission to blow dry my hair and redo my makeup. I'm blow drying my hair in my avatar.
|
musicalsnewbie
|
cutting songs | PappyCat wrote: | | Beagle On Stage wrote: | | Salome wrote: | | the songs i'd cut from the shgow are... Yesterday I Loved You, Swamps of Home (ugh!) and Quiet. |
"Swamps of Home" is the worst song in the show. I've never seen a production of "Once Upon a Mattress" where it wasn't boring. It's cute when the girls sing with her, but that's not enough to justify the five minutes wasted on it.
"Quiet" is okay if you don't do the whole thing. One of my productions just had the ladies following the Queen with sheets, pillows, blah blah blah and they went through the refrain once in unison, then went, "Quiet, quiet, quiet," getting softer each time, then the Queen went right into "Please! Sheets..." and they didn't dance, we just sent Larken and the Minstrel across right after "Right, right, right." It got Act 2 opened, but didn't drag on forever with chanting and foot-stomping. |
I agree that Quiet is absolutely worthless...and our version actually cut it about in half.
I love Swamps of Home, though. It was fun to perform and we made it so incredibly cheesy that the audience really dug it. They laughed the entire time.
EDIT: Yeah, I totally wrote almost this exact thing a few months ago when this topic was new. What a terrible memory I have! |
Haha, that's funny, I agree with Pappy about Swamps, but I disagree with everyone else! As Fred, Swamps of Home is my very favorite song to sing. For me, that song really defines Fred; and bless our choreographer, the staging of it is absolutely hilarious. We do the song up so that it's all Fred trying to impress Dauntless with this big, dramatic story, so at the beginning, she snaps her fingers to cue the "gluggle girls" as we call them to sing. And I get to be so over-dramatic, I love it. But then I get caught up in my own drama, and it suddenly becomes real to me, and it's not just me showing off to Dauntless anymore, and THAT's when it goes crazy. Because we hold rehearsels at a school that does summer school, we get a lot of people in who watch rehearsels, and that song always cracks everyone up. If you take liberties with it and overdo it, I think it can be the best song in the show!
Also, our Quiet is just spellbinding. I get to say that because I'm not in it, which is a good thing, because I'd mess it up! We have a pretty huge cast, and our amazing choreographer blocked the whole thing in three hours, but our cast is so damn talented that they can get through the whole song and not miss a beat. With so many people perfectly in sync, it's amazing to watch. We have two groups of people at the sides of the stage, kinda coming off on these ramps, doing the main rhythm, and dancing and tapping in rhythm, then we have really intricate stuff on stage with the mattresses and stuff. Maybe I'm just obsessed with our show, but I adore this scene!
And our jester is 13 years old, cute as a button, and ridiculously talented for a kid that young, so Very Soft Shoes is just magic. Personally, I wouldn't cut a single thing from this play. If it's done with enthusiasm, I think the whole play is perfection! 
|
Lion
|
I like the king best. He completely improvised the birds and bee's scene. It was hillarious. At one point in our play, he get's fed up and pulled out a copy of 'Ye Old Playboy'.
|
