STAGE REVIEWS : There’s No Rest for Cast Once Upon ‘Mattress’ : There’s corn and lots of shtick in this princess-and-the-pea musical by Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse. But it makes for an evening of harmless fun.

In the original story of the princess and the pea, a lady is proven to be a genuine princess when her sleep is disturbed by a pea hidden under the bottom mattress in a stack of 20. “Once Upon a Mattress” is a whimsical retelling of this fairy tale, in which the sensitive heroine, Princess Winifred, makes her first entrance soaking wet, having just swum the moat.

The script is full of such vaudevillian turns and anachronistic jokes, and the production at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse is as loaded with corn as Kansas in August. Under Cyndi Mitchell’s direction, everything is played as fast and as funny as possible--frequently too fast and often not as funny as it could be. But as an evening of harmless fun, it succeeds with an innocence that softens its shortcomings.

Chief among the production’s pluses is Steve Glaudini as Prince Dauntless, who is adorable and who manages to capture some of the show’s whimsy, which is otherwise overpowered by the shtick.

Anette Sanders makes a sturdy, likable Winifred and has a strong, song-selling vocal style that suits the music and lyrics. Chris Thomas contributes his smooth tenor as the Minstrel, and Tim Kashani, as the Jester, dances and sings with aplomb.

The rest of the company plays with a broadness that starts with the subtlety of a Mack truck and grows from there. Fortunately, a sense of fun is projected, and as nothing in the script demands to be taken too seriously, all is relatively well.

The set, by Dave Scaglione, looks like an oversized cardboard box that has been cut up with scissors and colored with crayons.

The lighting by Eric Person is functional but woefully harsh. And it is worrisome when poor Winifred, atop her 20 mattresses, is all but sleeping with a large and ominous-looking lighting instrument. Still, there’s an almost endearing clumsiness pervading the physical production, epitomized Friday night by the crashing exit of the 20-layer bed in the interminable blackout before the curtain call. It got one of the biggest laughs of the night.

‘ONCE UPON A MATTRESS’

A Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse production. Music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, book by Barer, Jay Thompson and Dean Fuller. Produced by Denise Kenney. Directed by Cyndi Mitchell. Musical direction by Terry Alaric. Choreography by Timothy J. Klega. Set design by Dave Scaglione. Lighting design by Eric Person. With Anette Sanders, Steve Glaudini, Tim Kashani, Chris Thomas, Beth Titus, Jim Goodrich, Tony Grande, David Frederick Fogg, Dani Ballew, Jenn Baker, Elisha Gruer, Carrie Lee Payne, Karen Luebkemann, Sandra Paradis, Marcus Plasencia, Todd Larson, and Joshua Eklund. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm., Sundays at 2 pm. through May 12 at 661 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa. Tickets: $12.50 Thursdays and Sundays, $15.00 Fridays and Saturdays. (714) 650-5269.