I had a chance to be in NYC over a weekend so I took advantage of it and went to see some theatre. Usually if I’m in town for Sunday night, there’s no evening show or it’s early and I can’t make it in time to get rush tickets. This time I had a bit more time. My first pick was to see Once, but I was too late for their rush tickets. Then I tried my luck for the Wicked lottery – but didn’t get picked. Next I tried Mamma Mia for standing room tickets – they only sold those when the show was sold out, but I was feeling lucky for a warm Saturday night. I didn’t get standing room tickets, but they sold me a student rush ticket. It was “partial view (second row, and on an angle), but it wasn’t partial view for me (sure everything was on a slant, but I only noticed 2 times when I missed stuff – once because there was an ensemble member in front of me and another when they were purposely facing the other corner).
I actually didn’t remember that this musical was based entirely on ABBA songs until I sat down. I don’t mind though, although I’m not a huge ABBA fan, I enjoy their songs and I have a copy of ABBA Gold. In fact I think every song in Mamma Mia, except maybe 1, was from the disc (at least they sounded familiar to me). This gave the musical a leg up already, because I knew and liked the music. However, it was a drawback as well since the songs were sung by singers who didn’t sing as well as ABBA. One notable exception was the person who portrayed the Mom who had a distinctive singing voice in her own way (sounds like a country singer).
The songs were cleverly woven into the plot – actually the almost seem like they were written for the play (although we know otherwise) so that was actually pretty impressive. I’m pretty sure they changed some of the lyrics (probably in the verses), but I’m not a big enough ABBA fan to know. One thing I was disappointed with was the ending which, while the anticipated things happened, didn’t really go out with a bang. I guess that’s because ABBA never had any hits that were about happy times?
There was an encore of sorts, where they did a mini tribute band/dance party (Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Waterloo). That was good because it ended the night with high energy (something that the true ending didn’t do)
Hi! and welcome to the eclectic personal blog of Kevin Quan. Come in, stay awhile, peek into the nooks & crannies, and learn a bit about me and my interests.