Review: Out Front’s ‘Once Upon a One More Time’ asks more than it answers

What you make of Once Upon a One More Time at Out Front Theatre, on stage through November 7, likely depends on how you react to these four words: Britney Spears jukebox musical. 

If the phrase makes you shudder, this colorful fairy-tale mash-up probably won’t do much to change your mind. But if it sounds less like a warning and more like a religious calling — sending you scrambling through your drawer of concert T-shirts to find just the right one for opening night —  you’re probably in for a much better time.

Either way, or if you fall somewhere in the middle, the question is: What does the show accomplish with its unlikely ingredients, and can a catalog of pop hits turn classic stories about women and their supposed “happy endings” into something genuinely fun and subversive?

In this musical, the fairy tale characters we know are caught in an endless cycle of re-enactment. Whenever a child opens a book or listens to a story, the princesses and princes must play out their familiar tales, overseen by an officious Narrator (Spencer Perdeck) who insists that the plots stay on track. All well and good, but then the Original Fairy Godmother (a brassy and funny Caty Bergmark) introduces the princesses to Betty Friedan’s 1963 feminist landmark book, The Feminine Mystique. Led on by Cinderella (Dawson Babischkin), the princesses begin to question their destinies. Must a woman’s story end with marriage to a prince? Might there be something more?

It’s a reasonable question and a promising one for a musical to pose, but the show struggles to develop a compelling answer. The princesses’ awakening rarely advances beyond the realization that they needn’t accept the roles assigned to them. The humor seldom sharpens into genuine satire, and the feminist message, though well-intentioned, feels more like a slogan than an intriguing idea offered and examined through performance.

And the fans will come for me, but I have to ask: Why Britney Spears?

As a cultural figure, Spears has occupied an extraordinary place in the popular imagination, though what she means has never been as singular as the commentary around her might suggest. Once Upon a One More Time borrows Spears’ catalog without finding much to say about the person or cultural figure behind it, or, for that matter, making a particularly persuasive case for what these songs add to its fairy tale feminist awakening. A phenomenon can be culturally enormous without ever cohering into a single meaning — maybe resistance to a meaning is part of what “cultural significance” consists of nowadays.

The problem is we may be referring to several things when we say “Britney Spears.” There’s Britney Spears the person (who would actually make a really great subject for a performance with music in my view). And then there’s Britney Spears, the cultural figure. Then there’s Britney Spears, the catalog of familiar songs available for recycling and upselling. The musical leans heavily on the last option.

Her songs are the show’s selling point, but they don’t consistently feel integral to the story. The lyrics are sometimes altered to fit the action, and, while a couple of numbers land neatly, others feel inserted rather than newly heard and discovered. Spears herself is conspicuously absent: Her distinctive voice, stage presence and complicated relationship with the machinery of celebrity are all missing from the musical that borrows her songs.

There are exceptions. “Work Bitch,” delivered as Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters insist that she stay home and work rather than attend the ball, is genuinely funny. The song’s beat-heavy, almost spoken delivery fits the scene’s comic cruelty, making it one of the evening’s more satisfying intersections of music and story. Snow White (Alexis Trammell) has a remarkably strong voice, and the leads Babischkin as Cinderella and Will-Franklin Eller as Prince Charming bring some welcome stage charisma.

The cast is large and capable, the people on stage are enjoying themselves (anything else would make the evening lethal) and the production is never short on energy. Simple sets are dressed up with glitter, confetti, disco lights and Jessica Oglesby’s fittingly Britney-style choreography. Yet the sound mix sometimes works against the spectacle. With the performers miked and the musicians largely out of sight, the balance falters; microphones that seem to cut down or out further diminish the songs’ impact. The numbers rarely achieve the force that might make this feel like the big pop event it wants to be.

There is a lot of effort onstage: singers, dancers, elaborate staging and a steady stream of theatrical flourishes, all in service of a fairly simple tale. At nearly two-and-a-half hours, the show feels overextended. The Narrator supplies moments of genuine humor and menace, but even this promising figure never quite connects the fairy tale conceit to the Spears songbook in a way that makes the combination feel necessary. 

Out Front Theatre, which has built its work around LGBTQIA+ stories and artists, is a natural home for a show that questions prescribed identities and conventional endings. The production’s intentions are easy to appreciate, and its performers deserve credit for their commitment. 

The princesses may be ready to rewrite their stories. This production, though, does not offer a particularly illuminating new version. 

Where and When

Once Upon a One More Time is at Out Front Theatre through November 7. Tickets start at $40.
999 Brady Ave. NW.

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Andrew Alexander is an Atlanta-based writer, editor and arts journalist. A longtime contributor and former senior editor at ArtsATL, his work appears regularly in local, regional and national publications, covering theater, visual art, music, film, dance, literature and the artists and institutions shaping Atlanta’s cultural landscape.