Review: Britney Spears Musical Is a Puzzling Fairytale

How do you not get “Baby One More Time” right? That is the first mystery—and the first warning that all may not be well—with Once Upon a One More Time, the musical filled with Britney Spears’ music that opened on Broadway Thursday evening (Marquis Theatre, booking to Nov 19). Truly, if you’re doing this magnificent banger, don’t kick off your big Broadway jukebox musical with it feeling as messy as this musical does.

Frankly, this may not matter to the Spears faithful having the time of their lives at this show. Seeing the fans crowd the foyer is one of the most unexpected, life-giving joys of the New York summer. The Marquis has made the musical into a fun night out, complete with themed photo booths, and the audience this critic attended were bubbling with joy just to be there, dressed up in sparkly tops and their Britney finest. But even for them, one sensed—given the audience responses—the musical hit big at some moments, but did not hit big throughout.

This review is first a plea for a moratorium on the recustomizing of fairytales, if the recustomizing you’re doing is the most basic and glib of feminist refits. The laboriously titled Once Upon a One More Time is a reference to reframing the fairytale’s central storyline of Cinderella (Briga Heelan) wanting something else for herself besides the traditional ending of glass slipper, and Prince Charming (Justin Guarini) we are well aware of.

Read more at The Daily Beast.