Review: MAMMA MIA! at Ed Mirvish Theatre

Pardon the cliché, but, MAMMA MIA, here we go again.

The 1999 ABBA jukebox juggernaut is back again at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, full of cheery, dance-heavy numbers, a simple, wacky plot, and plenty of shiny spandex outfits. It seems few people haven’t seen the 2008 movie, once the highest-grossing musical film of all time, or heard the famous catalogue of pop and disco songs, and there’s not much that hasn’t been said about the thin but appealing and frothy toe-tapping work, still using Phyllida Lloyd’s original direction; as the ad reads, “You already know you’re gonna love it!” The current production is still working out all the kinks in the new space, but delivers all the wedding-themed MAMMA MIA you can handle, for better or for worse.

Catherine Johnson’s book thankfully avoids the traditional musician’s biopic, providing a silly but cohesive enough narrative arc as Sophie (Alisa Melendez), the 20-year-old daughter of former wild child Donna (Christine Sherrill), sends wedding invitations to the three possible dads she’s read about in mom’s purloined diary.

Though she’s promised husband-to-be Sky (Grant Reynolds, in a somewhat thankless part) that she would put the question of her dad’s identity out of her mind, Sophie is still desperate to know whether it’s dissolute globetrotting travel writer Bill (Jim Newman), kindly British banker Harry (Tony Clements, who will be replaced by Rob Marnell later in the run), or steady American architect Sam (Victor Wallace), all of whom show up at Donna’s taverna (dreamt up by Sam but built by her hands) on a fictional, isolated Greek island for the festivities.

Sam is Donna’s sore point, having ostensibly ditched her for a fiancée back home, breaking her heart and cementing her desire to go the rest of her life alone. Thankfully, after the shock of seeing the men from her past, the disconsolate Donna is shored up by two old friends and fellow single ladies, backup singers in her ‘70s trio Donna and the Dynamos.

Brassy Tanya (Jalynn Steele) has torn through three millionaire husbands, while jovial Rosie (Carly Sakolove) has lived a freewheeling life as an author. Steele and Sakolove are show standouts, cavorting around with glee and upping the energy of each scene while snatching household items to use as performance equipment surrogates. “I could wear this as an eyepatch,” jokes Rosie about her former, rather tiny Dynamo outfit, draping it around her neck. Steele tears up the stage in “Does Your Mother Know,” high-kicking in a sharp electric blue and tiger print bathing suit-wrap combo (credit to production designer Mark Thompson) and ably commanding enthralled dancing taverna staff and guests Sophie’s age.

Speaking of dancing, Anthony Van Laast’s cute choreography includes numbers like the famously fun scuba flipper dance and the occasional meta, cheeky moment, such as one where the sometimes invisible chorus members poke their heads out from behind a doorframe to remind us of their presence. An act-opening nightmare sequence featuring the cast in neon scuba gear harkens back to the psychedelic ‘70s. The cast’s energy is necessary to make the production feel bigger than it is with what seems like a reduced touring set.

The show’s sound designers (Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken) may be asking “how do you solve a problem like Mamma Mia?” They’re still getting the hang of the sound balance, with the orchestra blaring more loudly than the singers in front of it. Currently, the men are getting a better share of the volume than the women, who all have excellent voices but are sometimes difficult to hear when singing at the bottom of their ranges. Tech also hit a couple of rough spots, but the disruption was actually fruitful; when a body mic failed, the quick-thinking Sakolove provided her co-star with a well-timed hand mic handoff, and the resulting choreography with mic in between turned a mishap into a clever highlight, a rare moment of the unexpected.

Donna’s former suitors have an appealing rapport in their opening number; despite having little time to flesh out their characters, it’s clear what each one of them meant to Donna and means to Sophie, Melendez appealingly winsome in her quest to find her father. I admit that I longed for a bit more humour and fire from Sherrill’s Donna, but her anguished belting during “The Winner Takes It All” is emotionally affecting, making the most of the show’s second act slowdown.

That slowdown in the second act reminds us that the jukebox lyrics are almost always more germane to the situation (you can tell they’ve mostly been fit into the plot) than to deepening characterization. It’s also caused by the writers’ insistence on keeping each Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (sometimes with Stig Anderson) song complete, with most assigned to a single character. This sometimes hampers the show’s forward motion, as the characters not singing are often left rather helpless, making small gestures for long periods while the other character performs.

As well, some of the show’s content feels like a turn-of-the-century time capsule, such as when Sky tells Sophie, “you don’t need a father, you have me,” or the preponderance of numbers just this side of uncomfortable where one or several sexed-up characters chase down a rather reluctant love interest. On the other hand, the message to live life freely and go for what you want without shame holds up just fine from 1999.

And above all, who cares about all that when you can dance to the titular number during the elaborate curtain call medley, shaking a newly-acquired neon pink feather boa from the merch table? You’ll have the songs stuck in your head for at least a week: It’s MAMMA MIA, it’s 25 years strong, and it’s unABBAshedly itself.

Photo by Joan Marcus

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