When Mamma Mia! arrived on Broadway in 2001, the one different jukebox musical on the town was a revival of forty second Road, a throwback to a Nineteen Thirties songbook. For Mamma Mia!’s 2025 return to New York, it’s one in all seven jukebox exhibits on Broadway. Two of these, & Juliet and Moulin Rouge, observe Mamma Mia!’s lead in sculpting a fictional plot across the tune catalog, whereas the opposite 4 inform the tales of the featured artists within the mode of Jersey Boys. However unhealthy information, chiquitita: Mamma Mia!, a minimum of on this iteration, which is the New York cease of the present’s nationwide tour, is the weakest of the jukebox choices out there at current.
That’s partially as a result of this manufacturing, which replicates Phyllida Lloyd’s unique staging however with visibly low cost variations of the units that stagehands in headsets often push backwards and forwards, by no means means that we’re seeing Mamma Mia! in peak type. Amongst this long-touring forged, led by Christine Sherill as hardworking single mother Donna, there’s little or no chemistry to animate what ought to be a minimum of an intermittently attractive story.
On the eve of her marriage ceremony, Sophie (Amy Walker) welcomes a trio of middle-aged males to the Greek island the place she grew up. All three slept with Donna kind of 9 months earlier than Sophie’s beginning, and the bride is decided to have her father, whomever he may be, stroll her down the aisle. Candy-voiced Sam (Victor Wallace) is the one which acquired away, whereas Invoice (Jim Newman), a lasso-miming journey author, and Harry (Rob Marnell), a jolly former rocker who’s apparently a Brit (the accent work is alarming), are much less possible suitors for mother’s hardened coronary heart.
One hopes that maybe a fourth much less icky fellow will swoop in with a paternity take a look at on the prepared: “You’re a bit of minx…identical to your mom,” Sam tells Sophie earlier than he realizes he may simply be her dad. Not that Sophie’s bethrothed, Sky (Grant Reynolds), who fantasizes to his fiancée about pursuing one final evening of lap dances, is a lot better. If these are the one males out there on Greek islands, maybe Sophie and Donna would have higher luck on the close by isle of Lesbos.
All of those sitcom hijinks, put throughout for essentially the most half with a sprightly flatness, are punctuated, after all, by an onslaught of ABBA tunes, with bookwriter Catherine Johnson’s plotline reverse-engineered in order that the songs will make sense. One imagines the story could solely focus on a marriage in order that the ensemble can sing, “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do.”
And that is the place Mamma Mia!’s age and standing within the style has begun to work towards it. For a lot of audiences, within the wake of 1 / 4 century of productions and successful movie (plus a sequel), nearly all of the present’s songs are simply as well-known for being Mamma Mia! numbers as ABBA hits. The present has retained its frivolousness however not its sense of shock.
So thank the Greek gods for Jalynn Steele and Carly Sakolove as Tanya and Rosie, Donna’s greatest buddies and former bandmates, who present up on the island dead-set on reliving their glory days (cue “Tremendous Trouper”) and reinvigorating the present. Steele’s thrice-divorced, wise-cracking Tanya presents an particularly miraculous comedian intervention. At one farcical excessive level, Steele launches herself backward into the air on to a mattress with slapstick buoyancy. The pleasures of Mamma Mia! stay, mainly, the pleasures of watching middle-aged besties don their greatest ABBA outfits and carry on rocking out, irrespective of what number of muscle mass they pull.
Collectively, Steele and Sakolove coax the freest moments from Sherill, who belts “The Winner Takes It All” with grounded grit however by no means elsewhere persuades that Donna is an intimidating native legend famend for her toughness and vivacity. Because the present slips right into a second-act declaration, the buddies every rush in with upbeat numbers of their very own: “Does Your Mom Know?” for Steele and “Take a Probability on Me” for Sakolove, to maintain the heart beat from flatlining. In any other case, act two is slow-going till the explosive closing minutes.
Mamma Mia! has at all times been a mediocre musical with a meteoric encore: After the curtain name, the lighting rig descends whereas the forged reprises the title tune and that galvanizing “Dancing Queen” earlier than providing the present’s solely model of “Waterloo,” all with the six middle-aged leads clad within the present’s signature neon look. It’s this five-minute medley, what’s come to be referred to as the “megamix,” that almost all defines Mamma Mia! within the cultural creativeness and has formed the jukebox musical most markedly over the previous 25 years. The megamix, with the viewers standing to affix within the dance get together, demonstrated—certainly, nonetheless demonstrates as essentially the most vibrant part of this manufacturing—that the surest strategy to spell success for a jukebox musical can be the best: Scrap character, shed plot, and easily stand and ship the hits.
Mamma Mia! is now working on the Winter Backyard Theatre.
Since 2001, we have introduced you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of movie, music, tv, video video games, theater, and extra. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit laborious in recent times, however we’re dedicated to conserving our content material free and accessible—that means no paywalls or charges.
In the event you like what we do, please take into account subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
The publish ‘Mamma Mia!’ Assessment: Here We Go Once more! appeared first on Slant Journal.