In my theatergoing experience, it has usually been the case that a play that is three hours long could benefit from some pruning. I have seen HAMLETs and KING LEARs that ran well over three hours and the time seemed to fly by. Eugene O’Neill’s plays are all much too long for. their content—self-indulgent characters babbling endlessly. Recently in Chicago, Brandon Jacob Jenkins’ PURPOSE ran almost three hours and no one seemed to mind. Even more than an average length play, a long play needs absorbing characters, brilliant dialogue, and a gripping story. 

                  The multi-award winning STEREOPHONIC by David Adjmi clocks in at three and a quarter hours. Does it need to be? The individual characters are not particularly interesting, their dialogue is pretty flat, and much of what happens is familiar from films and television series. Nonetheless, the play somehow works.

                  Based loosely on the history of the 1970s group Fleetwood Mac, much of STEREOPHONIC takes place in a recording studio in Sausalito, California in 1975. Basically, we witness the all-night recording session of the album that will make the group famous. Peter, the alpha male of the group, is a ruthless perfectionist. He and one of the female singers, Diana, are romantically involved. The British members of the group seem less driven than the Americans. Reg, the bass player, is either swigging from a liquor bottle or burying his nose in cocaine. Simon, the drummer, would like to be able to exert a bit more individuality rather than be told exactly what to do. Holly, the keyboard player, wants to find her way through all of the male ego. Out of the studio the band members flirt and fight. Inside they work at being an ensemble.

                  The set allows us to see the personal and artistic side of these characters. Downstage is the control room where the sound engineers sit. The area is also the lounge for the musicians when they are not in the studio, the place where their personal interactions take place. Behind a large glass window is the studio itself where the real work happens.

                  The group is a dysfunctional intentional family. They have been living together in a rented house when they are not in a recording studio. We watch their personal relationships poison their artistic relationship. Peter is a master of the hurtful put down. Strangely, the reaction to his cruelty is usually silence (there are quite a few long pauses. Harold Pinter would have loved it!).  No one wants to risk fighting back. Of course he becomes increasingly isolated. Is he an uncompromising perfectionist or just a nasty S.O.B? Diana, his partner of nine years, leaves him and leaves the group to embark on a solo career.

                  There are two themes that are developed in STEREOPHONIC. The first is the hard work involved in creating even a pop album. We’ve seen that story before, but it is presented here more realistically than we may be used to seeing. The other, more fascinating dimension of the work is the difficulty of being an ensemble. We all know the story of the Beatles and many of us know the trials and tribulations of Fleetwood Mac. Here we watch the creation and breakdown of an ensemble. 

In the first half, the group records together, much like a live performance. As, later, individuals are recorded on separate tracks that are mixed together, the individuals in the group resist Peter’s increasingly tyrannical direction. Members decide to go their own way. 

The final scene shows us the group’s last performing session. They now are stars and are recording in Los Angeles, but most of the members want to move on. At the end, the most important creative figure is Grover, the recording engineer, who seems to have no life outside the studio. Grover has developed from a novice engineer to “producer,” the person who takes the bits and pieces and creates the album. 

Under Daniel Aukin’s direction, the ensemble cast is brilliant. The play demands good old-fashioned realistic acting, and the seven actors truly inhabit their characters. They are also fine musicians. Composer Will Butler gets billing equal to the playwright’s, but don’t go expecting a musical. Only a few of songs are performed in full. 

Is the length justified? At the end of the 105 minute first act (as long as many plays these days), I thought why am I watching these boring people. However, the conflicts and transformations in the second half justify the entire experience of the play. 

Back before Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim, most musicals were “musical comedies,” meant to make an audience laugh while giving them some enjoyable tunes. The performers were singing comics. The 1950s was the last decade when musical comedies still ruled Broadway. They became rarer and rarer. ONCE UPON A MATTRESS was one of the last great old-fashioned musical comedies. It had an odd history. The show was first performed in 1959 at the Phoenix Theatre, a former Yiddish theatre down on Second Avenue. George Abbott, the master of the genre, directed. The musical is most famous for being the launching pad for the career of Carol Burnett, who quickly moved to television stardom. The original production earned a Tony for Burnett and one as Best Musical. Burnett did three television productions of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS. All were cut to various degrees, leaving the scenes with Burnett and pruning much of the rest. In 2005, Sarah Jessica Parker starred in a short-lived Broadway revival. Earlier this year, New York City Center Encores produced a revival with a revised, sharper book by Amy Sherman Palladino and starring Sutton Foster. The critical raves and audience euphoria led to the show being moved to Broadway for a limited run. Lear de Bessonet, one of the most inventive directors working now, staged the simple production. As usual with Encores productions, the action is played on a simple set in front of the orchestra. 

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS is based on the old child’s tale, “The Princess and the Pea.” It is joyous fun for adults, but kids would love its colorful storybook sets and costumes and its silliness.

Forster, her co-star, the brilliant Michael Urie, and the supporting cast have truly captured the pace and style of old-fashioned American musicals. They are all shameless and all hysterically funny. Foster is one of the great Broadway divas of this century. We all know that she can sing or dance, but I don’t think any of us knew that she is a great clown, the equal of folks like Lucille Ball. You would have to have a heart of stone to get through Foster’s first ten minutes on stage without tears of laughter rolling down your face. Urie is smart enough to match her by underplaying. Will Chase, Ana Gasteyer and the rest of the cast make a glowing comic ensemble.

Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard Rodgers, didn’t compose the scores of many musicals. Too bad. Her tunes are delightful here.                  All the principals are fine singers who do the songs justice while maintaining the zany humor. The orchestra sounds like a Golden Age ensemble. Real instruments, not synthesizers.

You can see one of Carol Burnett’s television versions of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS on YouTube. Still, it’s worth a trip to New York to see this charming revival.

I also saw WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, a new musical based on the book and movie of the same title. The songs all sounded like other songs one has heard. The performances are as flat as the dialogue. This is a circus show with some sub- Cirque de Soleil acrobatics and a few impressive puppets. I kept thinking back to two really good shows about circuses and carnivals, BARNUM, with a delightful Cy Coleman score and terrific performances from Jim Dale and Glenn Close, and Gower Champion’s magical production of CARNIVAL with a lovely score by Bob Merrill, brilliant staging from Gower Champion and a superb cast (Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jerry Orbach, Kaye Ballard, and James Mitchell). WATER FOR ELEPHANTS was not in this league.