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Mama Mia Adelaide Festival Theatre Now showing until Feb 18 There's no denying that, song for song, ABBA were probably the second most successful pop band of tha last century (I'm counting the Beatles as first; regardless of what purists may think, they were indeed pop). While it wasn't inevitable, it was certainly no surprise that the Swedish squllionaires decided to milk the copyright pot of gold just a tad more by writing a show featuring their songs. The result is 'Mama Mia', a production chockful of ABBA favourites, totally unencumbered by plot. To be fair, there’s a semblance of a story, which appears hastily cobbled together to link the songs for a couple of hours. Here goes. On a Greek island (?) a young girl is to be married. She would like her father there, and when she discovers he could be one of three men, she invites them all without her mother's knowledge. Her mother was in a singing trio when she was young (of course) and the two old friends are amongst the guests. We never get to know who the father is (no-one considers that a DNA or blood test might be useful) but everyone lives happily ever after regardless, the mother marrying one of the hapless blokes and the daughter deciding she's really not ready to marry after all. The set is oddly small, suited to a stage of lesser size than that available at the Festival Theatre, but is adequately suited to the action. Perhaps it's more noticeable than it should be because there's not enough to distract from the meagre surroundings. The high pitched shrieking and squeaking of the young women makes their youth obvious; it's grating in a theatre with good acoustics, particularly on this preview night when the sound had not yet been tuned properly. Understudies featured on this night, and the lack of experience showed; fortunately, just when one thought one had stumbled into a high school production, the more experienced actors showed up, and they had obviously decided just to have fun with the thing. Margi de Ferranti plays unmarried mum Donna, and she and her singing sisters Tanya (Jennifer Vuletic) and Rosie (Emma Powell), provide the most comic elements of the show. The intros and segues to songs like Chiquitita, Take A Chance On Me and Does Your Mother Know encourage forgiveness of other theatrical crimes, and the audience is mostly happy to suspend their disbelief, although at times it's a big ask. The Lotharios in question could not be accused of having pop sensibilities, and their very stiltedness made their characters work. Sam (Bruce Roberts), Harry (John O'May) and Bill (Peter Harley) don't seem unduly concerned with either the lack of plot or lack of evidence of their paternity; they're all just happy to sing their songs and smile a lot - after all, it's a hit show! It's all good clean fun; an unmarried mother who slept with three men in the same week and doesn't know the father of her child, a 20 year old girl getting married (and then not) to her lover, a much married and divorced woman having it off with barely pubescent boys, one of the could-be fathers announcing that he is gay, all to the rockin' pop of the Abba supernaut. Ah, the eighties! Dontcha miss 'em? |
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