BROADWAY RECALL: When MAMMA MIA! Helped Heal Broadway

Welcome to BROADWAY RECALL, a bi-monthly column where BroadwayWorld.com's Chief Theatre Critic, Michael Dale, delves into the archives and explores the stories behind the well-known and the not so well-known videos and photographs of Broadway's past. Look for BROADWAY RECALL every other Saturday.

Earlier this week, after the country had collectively commemorated the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, a less significant but somewhat related event occurred. On September 14th, 2011, Mamma Mia! surpassed Miss Saigon's 4,097 performances to become the tenth longest running show in Broadway's history; a reminder that the musical that gets its score from the hit songs of ABBA will soon be celebrating the tenth anniversary of its opening at the Winter Garden. (Below is a montage of clips celebrating the musical's fifth anniversary on Broadway.)

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Despite its international success, Mamma Mia! is still the occasional butt of jokes by those who prefer their musicals with a little more substance. But ten years ago, when New Yorkers were still adjusting to the shock of so many lives lost and a way of life gone forever, Mamma Mia!, just by being the right musical at the right time, had something to do with Broadway's own healing process.

Broadway productions, even the big hits, played to miniscule audiences when the theatres resumed performances. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani did his best to encourage locals to go about their normal routines as soon as possible and for tourists to come over and help kick-start the city's economy, but nevertheless, several shows shut down earlier than expected and rumors flew around that more closings were on the way.

The first Broadway opening after 9/11 was perhaps the wrong musical for that time. Urinetown, the satirical, Brechtian style Off-Broadway transfer with its self-referential humor, tongue-in-cheek unhappy ending and major plot point that involved throwing people off a building, had its opening at Henry Miller's Theatre pushed from September 13th to the 20th. Despite being well received by the critics and a hot ticket during its previous run at the American Theatre of Actors, the producers knew this one would not be an easy sell to the typical tourist crowd and the post-9/11 attitude promoted by social pundits who were asking, "Is irony dead?" did not help matters. Typical of Urinetown's arch humor is the scene below, from the 2002 Tony Awards broadcast, where Hunter Foster leads the company in a mock-gospel number that encourages dealing with adversity by running away from it.

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Urinetown certainly was no flop, chalking up close to 1,000 performances before the demolition of its theatre forced an eviction (If it were today it might have moved to New World Stages.) but losing the Best Musical Tony Award to the buoyant and upbeat Thoroughly Modern Millie, despite winning for its book, score and direction, might have been taken as a sign that feel-good musicals would be the fashion for a while.

And oddly enough, the person who might be considered responsible for starting that fashion was New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley, whose review of Mamma Mia!, the next new musical to open on Broadway, began thusly:

It is a widely known if seldom spoken truth that when the going gets tough, the tough want cupcakes. Preferably the spongy, cream-filled kind made by Hostess. Actually, instant pudding will do almost as well; so will peanut butter straight from the jar. As long as what's consumed is smooth, sticky and slightly synthetic-tasting, it should have the right calming effect, transporting the eater to a safe, happy yesterday that probably never existed.

Those in need of such solace -- and who doesn't that include in New York these days? -- will be glad to learn that a giant singing Hostess cupcake opened at the Winter Garden Theater last night. It is called Mamma Mia! and it may be the unlikeliest hit ever to win over cynical, sentiment-shy New Yorkers.

Despite describing the book as "a sitcom script," claiming that the acting, "often brings to mind the house style of The Brady Bunch" and quipping that "the choreography is mostly stuff you could try, accident-free, in your own backyard," the city's most influential critic went on to say that "these elements have been combined, with alchemical magic, into the theatrical equivalent of comfort food" that "gives off a moist-eyed sincerity that is beyond camp."

I don't know what Mr. Brantley would have written about Mamma Mia! had it opened on just a normal mid-October evening.  Maybe he doesn't know either.  But ten years ago, like a theatrical psychoanalyst, he recognized what his readers needed at the time and prescribed spending a few hours with a "bland, hokey, corny, stilted, self-conscious" cupcake.

Audiences have been eating it up ever since.

Photo of current Mamma Mia! stars Stacia Fernandez, Lisa Brescia and Jennifer Perry displaying special Mamma Mia! cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery by Peter James Zielinski.

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