Mattress

Playbill cover for Encores!2024

As in Once Upon A, not the kind from Caspar or Tempur-pedic.

I saw the original show with Carol Burnett as Princess Winnifred, the performance that brought her well-deserved fame. (I’ve had a long affinity for her as people used to tell me we looked alike or ask if I was her. Back in the day there was a sort of resemblance; now she’s been nipped and tucked so that she no longer retains her essence. On the other hand, she’s 90 so she can do whatever she wants.)

No one ever claimed that Mattress, the one Broadway success by Mary Rogers, was a staggeringly great musical but it was fun.  (As is Mary’s book, Shy, which is highly entertaining and gossipy but also very sad. Her parents, Richard and Dorothy weren’t even remotely snuggly and that, combined with Dick’s depression and Dorothy’s haute approach to life didn’t add up to a cheery childhood.)

The Mattress revival at City Center is well-done with a terrific cast including Sutton Foster (very carefully avoiding Burnett’s approach) and J. Harrison Gee of Some Like It Hot fame as the Jester with more numbers than this role usually gets which isn’t a bad thing. His eye and lip glitter aren’t bad either.

And now to food. Searching for “foods to eat in bed,” I found lots of recipes, all of which require cooking. My view of bedroom food is that it should be easy to throw together, portable and not likely to end up all over you, your sheets or the floor. When stuck I used to rely on a peanut butter, Swiss cheese and mayo sandwich, a fave of my first husband’s. Unless you’re on the anti-mayo wagon, don’t scorn it. No need for a recipe: take a piece of decent bread, (side note: bought a loaf of supposed sourdough at Pain Quotidian recently which was ghastly but has ended up as delicious bread pudding), spread with Hellman’s Mayonnaise (no substitutes please), a healthy dollop of your preferred PB  topped with one or two slices of Swiss cheese, preferably one like Finlandia as opposed to those reduced salt versions that lend a new meaning to bland.

Bedtime snack

That’s it. Grab a napkin and you’re set. While you munch listen to Shy, sung here by Sutton Foster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CswHHvTbeV8