Stage Review: ABBA fan? Take a chance on 'Mamma Mia!' touring show
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Joan Marcus"Mamma Mia" features Carrie Manolakos.
Click photo for larger image.
The Swedish pop band ABBA inspired a cult following that has lasted long beyond its '70s chart-topping heyday. Nothing gets all ages dancing at a wedding reception like "Dancing Queen."
So it seems appropriate that "Mamma Mia!," a musical constructed around the ABBA oeuvre, is centered on a wedding. The mystery that drives the plot concerns the elder characters, late-'70s bohemians and rock-n-rollers now into midlife.
This is the only musical I've ever seen that has a pre-show spandex warning.
Bride Sophie, barely out of her teens, has been raised by her mother on an out-of-the-way Greek island and has never known who her father is. Just in time for her upcoming wedding, she finds her mother's diary and narrows down her paternity candidates to three men -- all of whom she invites for the wedding, without her mother's knowledge. She wants to find her daddy so he can give her away.
It's a challenge to construct a full-length Broadway show out of pop songs, with their catchy hooks but not always brilliant or original lyrics. Anyone who enjoys the pithy cleverness of show tunes will miss that.
Where: PNC Broadway Across America, Benedum Center, Downtown.
When: Today 7:30 p.m.; Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 1 and 6:30 p.m.
Tickets: $26.50-$66.50; 412-456-6666.
But hey, if you're on vacation on a slightly scruffy Greek island, you're not after intellectual rigor and high art. The set, an evocative playground of sunbleached wood, mismatched chairs, rust, shadows and the promise of turquoise water just offstage, practically hands you an umbrella drink.
This idyll is filled with attractive and infectiously bubbly people, most quite young and cute as mother-of-pearl buttons. The dancing is athletic, even in flippers, and open shirts display more washboards than a 19th-century laundry.
The plot resolves in an ending that's almost Shakespearean in its tidiness without being predictable. The dialogue provides some genuine belly laughs that leaven occasional forays into retro feminism or cliche. (In the final scene, Sophie actually utters the line, "I've learned something about myself." With a straight face.)
This is a show about emotion and relationships. Family is less about DNA than about love, and love is less about losing yourself than about finding yourself. Also, dancing just makes you feel better about everything.
Once you get used to the pop-songs idiom, some numbers are irresistible: the nostalgic midlife slumber party of "Dancing Queen," the tight harmonies and tighter costumes of "Super Trouper," the "Voulez-Vous" disco party, the day-glo dream absurdities of "Under Attack." "Slipping Through My Fingers" is sure to bring a tear for mothers and daughters; "The Winner Takes it All" is a resilient tour de force for mom Donna.
The duet of "Take a Chance on Me" will amuse anyone who's ever spent a wedding dodging an over-attentive fellow guest.
Carrie Manolakos is an earnest and sweet Sophie, and Laurie Wells as Donna shows maternal power and love that go beyond pluck. When her immovable object is hit with the irresistible force of Sam, the best-developed of the candidads, played with scarred appeal by Sean Allan Krill, the show finds a gut to go with all its heart.
Ian Simpson and Milo Shandel complete the paternal trio and do their best to bring texture to more stereotypical characters. Lisa Mandel and Laura Ware, as Donna's friends and former backup singers, comically provide the foils of experience to the froth of youth.
"Mamma Mia!" is a tall blender drink, sugary, fruity, highly decorative and not very strong. I saw men sitting glumly in the lobby during intermission, wearing the same expression you see outside fitting rooms. But dress your mind in cutoffs and relax. You're on vacation.
First Published November 30, 2006 12:00 am
