Chicago Tribune: "Mamma Mia!," the much-loved and now ubiquitous ABBA musical, is one of the few West End and Broadway shows that you could say work better in the round. That's the takeaway, at least, from director Rachel Rockwell's new Marriott Theatre production, an intimate and resonant staging of the ever-daffy but beloved 1999 jukebox show that focuses on finding emotional moments of female bonding.
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Last week, there was an article about the Blue Man Group, to which I posted a lengthy comment reply. I was questioning why that show was still running and successful, since it is just three blue men banging on drums and throwing paint. This week, there is an article about Mamma Mia, a show that technically has more of a plot, but just barely. Mamma Mia is probably one of the more well developed jukebox musicals, but that doesn't excuse it's thirteen year long Broadway run. There are plenty of Broadway shows that closed somewhat shortly after opening that had better music (looking at you, American Idiot). That being said, I love ABBA. Dancing Queen is a song that truly cannot be topped. I just think it is insane that this show is still as successful as it is. It is probably on tour number five by now, and it only just closed on Broadway a year or two ago.
I will always have a soft spot for Mamma Mia because ABBA's music was a big part of my childhood. Whenever we had to drive somewhere far away when I was a kid my parents would play ABBA's Gold album, so now I've grown pretty attached to it. However, even though I do love ABBA (maybe a little too much according to the people I drive around with now) I don't think that Mamma Mia should have been and Broadway for 14 years and toured for as long as it now. The musical is a ton of fun but has a pretty weak storyline, yet as so many stronger shows closed around it Mamma Mia stayed open. Something that I thought was pretty interesting about this article was that as the musical has aged the songs have become less known, which has distanced it from the genre of jukebox musical. Maybe this means that even though ABBA will fade of popularity this musical will keep running. All I know for sure is that I'm going to keep bumpin ABBA Gold for a long time.
May my grandmother forgive me for saying this (“Mama Mia!” is her favorite show), but “Mama Mia!” needs to die. It has had a good long, long, long run, putting in the round now does not make it new or better. Like Megan, I too grew up with ABBA being blasted throughout the house – there was no escaping it. I respect that other people enjoy the music and I respect them as artists, but I would never willingly subject myself to the music of disco, even if it was onstage. Speaking of which, I am continuously stumped by the success of “music” musicals. “Mama Mia!” and other great hits like “Across the Universe” and the musical using Green Day’s music or the one using the Rolling Stones or the one with Queen’s music are just there to regurgitate the music of artists and string together songs that were not written to play off of each other. You’re going to see a musical to relish in music you know. Why not just go to a concert? Where did the plot even come from?
This production looks so fun! Since it's closing a little over a year ago, Mamma Mia has taken the stage all over the country: national tour(s) as well as in almost every major summer stock theatre. My first encounter with Mamma Mia was actually the movie a number of years ago. I actually think I enjoy the movie over the live show. I saw the show a week before it's closing and when I did there was almost a sense of defeat amongst the cast. The show, in my opinion, had lost its polish. Many members of the cast appeared to be marking their choreography and some of the cues were called sloppily honestly. My next encounter with the show was seeing a bootleg of the Muny's production.... Let me just tell you now, that specific production changed my perspective of the show. It exuded the energy to put all 11,000 audience members on their feet during dancing queen. I also think its cool that some of our students were in that production.
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