Clive Barnes' Praise For Mama Mia
October 19, 2001 -- 3 1/2 Stars
'MAMMA Mia!" finally opened at the Winter Garden Theatre last night, after starting in London two years ago and traveling the English-speaking world ever since.
The ABBA musical was flamboyantly worth the wait. "Mamma Mia!" flies as tuneful as a lark and as smart as a cuckoo.
It offers one of those nights when you sit back and let a nutty kind of joy just sweep over you.
What's so different about this new rock-solid hit? Well, for one thing, it hasn't any new songs.
The score - neatly arranged by Martin Koch - is a nostalgic parade of 22 songs from the alphabetically challenged Swedish pop group of the '70s.
The true hero is British playwright Catherine Johnson, who took all these songs and cobbled a cohesive book around them. Genius.
The story Johnson came up with is rather similar to the 1968 Sophia Loren movie "Buena Sera, Mrs. Campbell," which also clearly inspired the later Alan Jay Lerner/Burton Lane Broadway musical, "Carmelina."
In all three, a lady finds herself a single mother with an 18-year-old daughter and the memory of not one, but three possible fathers.
Here the potential fathers are quite unaware of their possible paternity.
The heroine, Donna, still lives on a tiny Greek island, where they all first met and where she nowadays owns and runs the local taverna.
The plot gets going as Donna's daughter Sophie, about to get married, reads her mother's diary of the time, and guesses the identity of mom's three old flames.
Wanting her father at her wedding, and confident that she would recognize him at once, Sophie invites all three, unbeknownst to her mother.
Naturally, when they get there - together with two female buddies of Donna who in the old days formed a singing group with her - things are rather more complicated.
Johnson tells her story so skillfully you really feel for these people. And the ABBA songs are so perfectly matched you can only smile happily.
Phyllida Lloyd's staging gets the very last ounce of fun and sentiment out of the show - it's dazzlingly fast and breathtakingly simple - while Anthony Van Laast's choreography supports it at every turn.
As indeed do Mark Thompson's effectively Spartan setting and Howard Harrison's lighting, which splashes the scene with Aegean sunlight.
Canadian Louise Pitre, while offering a well-sung, resourceful and spunky Donna, hasn't got the innate tenderness of the London version's Siobhan McCarthy, so moments like the song "Slipping Through My Fingers," wonderfully used here for a mother/daughter duet, go for less than they should.
Of the three suitors, David W. Keeley (another Canadian) is resolutely fine as the romantic Sam, but the other two are narrowly OK.
Tina Maddigan, yet a third Canadian who plays Donna's daughter, and Joe Machota as her groom look good but don't always light up the Greek sky.
The great Judy Kaye and a languidly funny Karen Mason as those retro Dancing Queens from Donna's old pop-rock trio hold the show together like Krazy Glue.
And when you get to the coda finale - keep your seats, it ain't over till it's over - you'll be so happy you'll think you've just become a grandparent.
'MAMMA Mia!" finally opened at the Winter Garden Theatre last night, after starting in London two years ago and traveling the English-speaking world ever since.
The ABBA musical was flamboyantly worth the wait. "Mamma Mia!" flies as tuneful as a lark and as smart as a cuckoo.
It offers one of those nights when you sit back and let a nutty kind of joy just sweep over you.
What's so different about this new rock-solid hit? Well, for one thing, it hasn't any new songs.
The score - neatly arranged by Martin Koch - is a nostalgic parade of 22 songs from the alphabetically challenged Swedish pop group of the '70s.
The true hero is British playwright Catherine Johnson, who took all these songs and cobbled a cohesive book around them. Genius.
The story Johnson came up with is rather similar to the 1968 Sophia Loren movie "Buena Sera, Mrs. Campbell," which also clearly inspired the later Alan Jay Lerner/Burton Lane Broadway musical, "Carmelina."
In all three, a lady finds herself a single mother with an 18-year-old daughter and the memory of not one, but three possible fathers.
Here the potential fathers are quite unaware of their possible paternity.
The heroine, Donna, still lives on a tiny Greek island, where they all first met and where she nowadays owns and runs the local taverna.
The plot gets going as Donna's daughter Sophie, about to get married, reads her mother's diary of the time, and guesses the identity of mom's three old flames.
Wanting her father at her wedding, and confident that she would recognize him at once, Sophie invites all three, unbeknownst to her mother.
Naturally, when they get there - together with two female buddies of Donna who in the old days formed a singing group with her - things are rather more complicated.
Johnson tells her story so skillfully you really feel for these people. And the ABBA songs are so perfectly matched you can only smile happily.
Phyllida Lloyd's staging gets the very last ounce of fun and sentiment out of the show - it's dazzlingly fast and breathtakingly simple - while Anthony Van Laast's choreography supports it at every turn.
As indeed do Mark Thompson's effectively Spartan setting and Howard Harrison's lighting, which splashes the scene with Aegean sunlight.
Canadian Louise Pitre, while offering a well-sung, resourceful and spunky Donna, hasn't got the innate tenderness of the London version's Siobhan McCarthy, so moments like the song "Slipping Through My Fingers," wonderfully used here for a mother/daughter duet, go for less than they should.
Of the three suitors, David W. Keeley (another Canadian) is resolutely fine as the romantic Sam, but the other two are narrowly OK.
Tina Maddigan, yet a third Canadian who plays Donna's daughter, and Joe Machota as her groom look good but don't always light up the Greek sky.
The great Judy Kaye and a languidly funny Karen Mason as those retro Dancing Queens from Donna's old pop-rock trio hold the show together like Krazy Glue.
And when you get to the coda finale - keep your seats, it ain't over till it's over - you'll be so happy you'll think you've just become a grandparent.
posted by Mama Mia Tour at
1:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home