Jukebox musicals so often take the form of hagiographies, using corny tributes to the lives of famous artists as excuses to string together familiar songs, that it’s easy to forget there’s another well-worn formula: using a cockamamie fictional storyline as an excuse to string together familiar songs.
No show has been more successful in the latter approach than “Mamma Mia!,” a recycling of the undeniably glorious pop music produced by a Swedish supergroup, ABBA, in the 1970s and early ’80s. First staged on London’s West End in 1999, it became a Broadway hit two years later, and then an international one; a film adaptation arrived in 2008, and was followed by a prequel/sequel called, with a wink and a nod to the title song’s lyrics, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.”
For those who haven’t caught this homage in any of its incarnations, the original book by Catherine Johnson (who also wrote the screenplay for the first film) introduces us to Sophie Sheridan, a 20-year-old woman who was raised by a single mother and is desperate to know who her father is before her own imminent wedding.
Trouble is, Sophie’s mom, Donna, kept a busy social calendar during the period in which her daughter was conceived, and isn’t sure herself. But after digging up and digging through Donna’s old diary, Sophie identifies three candidates — and invites them all to her nuptials, being held on the dreamy Greek island where Donna sowed some of her wild oats, and where she now runs a hotel.
Chaos and hijinks ensue, and they are recaptured, rather too breathlessly, in the new Broadway revival of “Mamma Mia!” being presented at the Winter Garden Theatre, the show’s original Broadway home. A celebrated British director, Phyllida Lloyd, who helmed that production and the previous one in the U.K., as well as the films, is also on hand, guiding an energetic cast.
The performers, like those before them, get ample opportunity to launch into pop classics such as “Dancing Queen,” “S.O.S.,” and “The Winner Takes It All.” Some of the transitions are laughably contrived: A flirtation between one of Donna’s friends and one of Sophie’s potential dads sets the stage for “Take a Chance on Me”; after another of Donna’s pals courts the affection of a much younger man, she teasingly serenades him with, “Does Your Mother Know?”
“Down, boy. I’m old enough to be your mother,” the latter temptress, a serial collector of wealthy husbands, warns him, to which the eager youth responds, “Well then, you can call me Oedipus.”
It should all be silly, innocuous fun — as it was, to the best of my recollection, when I saw the first Broadway staging nearly 25 years ago. But even with the same essential script (only small updates have been made over the years, according to a representative for the production) and the same director on board — a woman whose credits range from an all-female Shakespeare trilogy to “Tina – The Tina Turner Musical,” another jukebox venture — the show feels more overheated and, frankly, vulgar at times.
The revival is anchored, heavily, by Christine Sherrill, a talented singer and actress who unfortunately wields her gifts here with a hammer. One moment, she is purring Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’s exquisite melodies tenderly; the next, she is turning both the volume and the vibrato up to 11, presumably to match her outsize emoting.
In fairness, Ms. Lloyd seems to have encouraged such scenery-chewing from many of her actors, particularly the women: Amy Weaver’s Sophie, though likeable and sweetly sung, often seems to be on the verge of a panic attack, while Donna and her buddies — Tanya, the cougar, and the more bookish Rosie, respectively played by Jalynn Steele and Carly Sakolove — clown around crassly. The ladies aren’t flattered by Anthony Van Laast’s choreography, which has them strut and hump like overripe schoolgirls.
Then there is the score, which, ironically, has always posed the central problem in “Mamma Mia!” ABBA’s popular songs and recordings were written, produced, and sung with a gleaming virtuosity and theatricality that defy either technical improvement or reinterpretation in the context of a musical. Where Broadway actors and musicians can attempt, for better or worse, to put their own distinctive spin on grittier rock fare, all they can do here is try to outshine the original material — and that’s a seemingly impossible task.
I doubt these warnings will dissuade fans who have been anxiously awaiting the show’s return, and they are legion; even in previews, “Mamma Mia!” has been doing bonzo box office, ranking just below “Hamilton” in grosses last week. Still, I’ll stick with the golden oldies, and I’d advise you to save your money and do the same.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
