There are two types of people in the world: those that appreciate the musical catalog of one Britney Spears, and those who observe her stardom from afar. For those in the former category, myself included, the new musical Once Upon a One More Time, now playing at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre, promises at least a baseline level of fun: a jukebox show of Spears’s most popular songs (along with some deeper cuts), albeit one flimsily woven around a familiar and overdone pop-feminist revision of classic fairytales.
The often winsome and freshly choreographed show, from a book by Jon Hartmere, pulls not from Britney’s story – this is not a sanitized version of her electric career and often tragic life, a la Broadway’s MJ – but from obviously heartfelt appreciation and larger cultural reconsideration of her legacy. America’s former pop sweetheart takes the form of Cinderella (Briga Heelan), consigned to play the role of damsel in distress for an unwitting Prince Charming (Justin Guarini) over and over again in a meta-fairytale factory.
