Mamma Mia Live Performance Report

I had the pleasure of seeing a live performance of Mamma Mia! by Catherine Johnson at the Fox Theatre on September 30th, 2014. Performed by the show’s touring company, this “jukebox musical” arranges several hit songs by the band ABBA throughout a story involving young bride-to-be Sophie, who concocts a scheme to bring her three prospective fathers home to find out which one can really walk her down the aisle for her wedding (without her mother knowing about it). As the wedding date nears, and more and more guests start to arrive, Sophie’s mother Donna discovers her scheme and must deal with the return of the three men. While one of the men, Sam, proves to be Sophie’s real father, all three men agree to be “one-third of a father” to Sophie, though Sophie decides not to marry her fiancé after all. Still, Sam and Donna get married in their place, and everyone lives happily ever after.
In terms of the acting, the vast majority of the cast was impressive, showing incredible vocal chops and the kind of broad comedic range that comes with a fluffy jukebox musical like this. Georgia Kate Haege was a particular delight as Sophie’s mother Donna, providing a warm and inviting presence that helped hit the rare emotional notes of the play more than I expected. Chelsea Williams’ Sophie is serviceable, but she is hampered by an underwritten, unexciting role; she’s simply the glue that holds all the other characters together. Still, with these few exceptions, the acting in the show is quite good (though it runs secondary to the song-and-dance choreography).
The lighting of Mamma Mia! was quite impressive for its time, lending a 70s glitz to the disco-happy songs of ABBA. Swirling lights of various colors brightened up some of the more dazzling musical sequences, and the dance floor often surged with textured gobos that made you feel like you were watching Saturday Night Fever moreso than Mamma Mia! Still, both feature that 70s kitsch nostalgia that is the show’s main appeal, so it is hard to fault them for it. Being a musical, Mamma Mia! naturally relies greatly on its ABBA-infused soundtrack, which is the show’s main appeal. The music is well-performed, and ABBA’s classics still hold up 40 years later; hits like “Dancing Queen” and “Money, Money, Money” have a bright, toe-tapping energy to them that elevate the show to a significant degree. This music is present throughout the intermissions and overtures as well, making the show a wall-to-wall exploration of the band and its music. The rest of the show is fairly straightforward sound-wise, with few sound effects to punctuate the action; in terms of audio, the show relies upon its catchy music to get the message across. While special effects were few and far between, this makes sense given the time limitations of the play; still, it also makes sense given the rest of the spectacle provided by the musical sequences, flashbacks and so on.
Apart from the songs and the charming performances, the costumes and set were perhaps the major supporting players of Mamma Mia! This particular production fully embraces its 1970s outlook, with broad, big-shouldered costumes for some of the women, a slinky black dress for Donna, and all manner of neon-colored outfits for the rest of the ensemble during some of the bigger musical numbers. The bright colors of the costumes are clearly meant to contrast with the relative starkness of the set, which mostly consists of a few flats of various levels painted white. While this is somewhat un-ambitious and drab, it does help to highlight the performances, and offers a nice, asymmetrical, all-purpose backdrop to use in a variety of settings. Overall, I felt the scenes in the play were well-established because of this open staging, though I could not help but feel I wanted a bit more from such a big, bombastic play. Perhaps some special effects could have further enhanced the setting and staging of the play.
The Fox Theatre itself is a nice, large stage for the setting of Mamma Mia! While it is not a gargantuan concert hall by any means, the company made good use of the space they had to set scenes in different areas of the stage and make use of the doorways and frames that were featured in the set backdrops. The audience, as per usual for a show like this, was fully engaged; I could hear many audience members singing along at various volumes, and people young and old were dancing in their seats. The comparative closeness of the actors to the audience lent a further sense of immediacy to the proceedings, sucking you into the action of the play and getting you involved in the exciting music. All in all, despite some limitations in the set and the overall lightness of the material, Mamma Mia! was an extremely successful production of a fun and entertaining musical.