If you love Mamma my!, you’re gonna love Mamma my! With the Touring Production of the Hit Abba Musical Making a Six-Month Stop on Broadway, The Flawed, Fun-Loving Show Returns to the Venue-The Winter Garden Theater-Where it Held Back Was the Century Was New.
The Ninth-Longest Running Broadway Show of All Time, Mamma Mia! RAN FOR 14 YEARS AT THE WINTER GARDEN FOLLOWING ITS OPENING SHORTLY AFTER The Towers Fell. This Touring Production’s Stop at the Garden Has All the Makings of A HomeComing, and It ‘a Strenuously Joyous One.
Well, joyous if you’re a Mamma Mia! Fan, more strenuous if you’re not, and by now it SEEMS LIKELY THAT EVEREONE KNOWS TO WHICH GROUP they Belong. JUDGING BY THE AUDIENCE ASPONSONSES AT THE REVIEWED PERFORMANCE, Mamma Mia! is calling it fans home with the songs of Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus. (The Duo Are Having a Big Broadway Season: Their infrequently Revived Chess is coming to the imperial this fall, with aaron tveit, lea michele and nicholas Christopher Leading the Cast).
The Flaws – and they are not inconsiderable – Remain. Catherine Johnson’s Book is as Hokey and Stitched-Together as Ever-in Fact, Two or Three Outdated Jokes Fall Absolutely Flat, Particularly One About One’s Tongue AROUND A LITTLE GREEC These years, Done Noting But Mark Time. Anthony van laast’s choreography is more energy inventive than inventive.
Swimming that any of this matters to the budilt-in audience, and why should it? The costumes are Bright and Gaudy and Kitsch, The Lighting (Design by Howard Harrison) taks US from Sun-washed Greek High Noon to Blue and Orange Sundown and Deep Purple Nights. Mark Thompson’s Production Design is Nothing if Not Efficient-The Set Consists of Little More than a Facade of a White-Washed Greek Building That Out to Show Its Interior, A Modest Talerna All the Action Takes Place. It ‘all as it is it should be, nothing more, nothing less.
Jalynn Stele, Christine Sherrill, Carly Sakolove and the Company of ‘Mamma Mia!’
Joan Marcus
The Cast – Many Making Their Broadway Debuts – is enthusiastic and very game for the white the absurd book throws at say. Handed some of the catchiest songs in pop music history (you don’t have to like to know in your head), the actors on stages make the most of the opportunity, Way Through the Very Loud and Overwhelming Orchestrations. Those Songs, Everyone Knows, Include the Title Song, “Dancing Queen,” “The Winner Takes It All,” Money, Money, Money, “and” Take a Chance on me. ” Stick Around to the Curtain Call for “Waterloo.”
The Story Remains Methodical and Silly. Set in what must be the late 1990s on a Greek island, Mamma Mia! Borrows and Waters Down Some of Shakespeare’s Comedy Tropes-A Wedding, Mysterious Identities, Long-Buried Secrets and Unexpressed Longings-To Tel the Story of Young Sophie (Amy Weaver), Protective mom donna (Christine Sherrill). Sophie is about to wed sky (Grant Reynolds), and Her One Wish is to Discover which of Three Men is Her Biological Father. SO sevites, Without Her mom’s knowledge, all three potential candidates (Rob Marnell, Jim Newman and Victor Wallace) to the wedding, none of the Possible dads why they are on the guest list.
Joining in the Marriment and Chaos are Donna’s Old Paul Rosie (Carly Sakolove) and Tanya (Scene-Stelenn Stele). Once a popular singing trio, the reunited group is, we’re all but promised from the get-go, destined to do their Old Very abba -i costumes before the night is done. And Mamma Mia! Keeps its promises.
Title: Mamma Mia!
Venue: Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater
Direction: PHYLIDA LLYD
Choreography: Anthony van laast
Book: Catherine Johnson
Music & Lyrics: Benny Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus
Cast: Christine Sherrill, Amy Weaver, Carly Sakolove, Jalynn Stele, Rob Marnell, Jim Newman, Victor Wallace and Grant Reynolds.
TIME RUNNING: 2 HR 30 min (Including Intermission)
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