YES, TAKE A CHANCE ON ARTS CLUB’S MAMMA MIA!
Here we go again. That’s the subtitle of the new Mamma Mia! prequel movie, opening in July.
And here we go again at the Stanley with the Arts Club mounting the stage musical that 60 million people have seen since its 1999 premiere — a show that, along with the 2008 movie, has helped keep all those addictive ABBA tunes bouncing around in our brains.
The Arts Club is betting on our unquenchable appetite for more by scheduling the play for the longest run in its history. Despite a few wobbles, which the legion of Mamma Mia! fans will forgive, ignore or even celebrate, Valerie Easton’s production delivers the feel-good vibes that make the story and music so irresistible.
Built on the scaffolding of two dozen ABBA songs, the clever story revolves around Sophie Sheridan (delightful Michelle Bardach), who invites to her wedding on the Greek island where she has grown up with her free-spirited mother Donna (Stephanie Roth) the three men most likely to have fathered her 21 years earlier.
The paternal mystery creates something of a whodunnit and the climactic wedding ceremony provides a clever resolution. But the musical trip, not the destination, is what it’s all about.
Sophie has her attractive friends, Sky the groom (Stuart Barkley), his hunky posse, and Donna and her girl-group pals Tanya (Irene Karas Loeper) and Rosie (Cathy Wilmot) from the days when they were rocker chicks Donna and the Dynamos. Duelling dads (Jay Hindle, Warren Kimmel and Michael Torontow) also get into the action.
The best songs pretty much sell themselves: Honey, Honey, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Take a Chance on Me, and of course the title tune. It’s hard to distinguish individual vocal quality because of Ken Cormier’s loud six-piece band, the large choral accompaniment on nearly every arrangement, and the Stanley’s muddy acoustics. But Bardach’s clear voice shines through, Torontow does nice work on S.O.S., and Roth excels when things quiet down around her on Donna’s The Winner Takes It All.
The ensemble numbers are always a strength in Easton’s shows and here she has a corps of terrific dancers to showcase her exhilarating choreography. Sophie and Sky’s Lay All Your Love on Me duet takes off with the male chorus dancing in flippers.
David Roberts’ azure sky and mobile white stone set make up the Aegean backdrop along with Robert Sondergaard’s pastel lighting.
Alison Green’s many costumes provide the dominant visual element, capped by the Dynamos’ outrageous outfits that capture all the glittery sartorial excess of the musical ’70s.
Speaking of excess, mannered overacting creeps into the picture from time to time. Even if parts of the show are written like cartoons, they don’t have to be played that way. Wilmot is the guiltiest party, her Rosie mugging and upstaging like crazy. Much of the audience, I have to say, loved it.
Make sure to stay through the curtain call medley which is almost as much fun as the whole rest of the show.