MAMMA MIA!
Playing at:	Jubilee Auditorium
Plays until:	July 1, 2007
Reviewed by:	Louis B.
	FULL REVIEW
User ratings:	(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)  Loading …

The hit musical Mamma Mia! which has made a boisterous return to the Jubilee Auditorium exists solely to showcase 20 vintage songs of the 70s pop sensation ABBA.

The concept is a winner because the songs ooze nostalgia and, at the same time, are so upbeat and infectious they can charm the socks off a whole new generation.

Which they most certainly do if the enthusiastic response for the opening night performance in Calgary is any indication.

The music is definitely the star of the current touring production that runs until July 1 and whenever a song is delivered with gusto by a performer, the show is a blast.

On a tranquil Greek island where her mother Donna (Mary Jayne Raleigh) runs a taverna, 20-year-old Sophie Sheridan (Vicki Noon) is about to marry the handsome, doting Sky (Timothy Ware).

Donna never told Sophie who her dad was because it could have been one of three men Donna seduced that hippy summer 21 years ago on this same island.

Unbeknownst to Donna, Sophie invites the three old suitors to her wedding and the fun begins as everyone tries to figure out who fathered Sophie.

The story by Catherine Johnson is alternately sweet and silly with Phyllida Lloyd’s staging consistently energetic, Mark Thompson’s designs appropriately tacky and Anthony Van Laast’s choreography blatantly campy.

It’s difficult to think of the last time a major musical featured chorus boys prancing about with wild abandon wearing far less than the chorus girls.

The sillier, campier and more outrageous the antics or dialogue, the more fun Mamma Mia! delivers. It’s only when Johnson tries to get sentimental or sappy that Mamma Mia! falters and that happens far too often in the second act.

The fact the 10-minute curtain call is an explosion of sound and fury is an admission by everyone involved that the show winds down rather than builds up.

The genius in Johnson’s book for Mamma Mia! is the way she weaves in the songs.

They really do seem to be written for the musical rather than musical being written for them which is what makes it so endearing.

This particular production belongs to Donna and her two friends Rosie (Allison Briner) and Tanya (Christine Sherrill) who echo the bitchy female characters on the campy British TV series Absolutely Fabulous.

They have the voices to belt out the songs and the pizzazz and boundless energy to sell all the corny dialogue.

By comparison, Noon and Ware are bland which only underscores how much of a distraction the contrived plight of the young lovers is to this musical.

As much as I enjoyed Mamma Mia!, it made me long to rush out and rent the Australian movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert which is an even more inventive, exhilarating and intoxicating tribute to Abba.

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