‘Mamma Mia!’ @ The Music Hall at Fair Park (Broadway Dallas)

Photoa by Joan Marcus

—Martha Heimberg

Mamma Mia! is such a jubilant and playful show; it’s easy to leave any nagging angst at the doors of The Music Hall at Fair Park and simply groove to the vibe of ABBA hits from the 70s, staged with verve and comic flair in the 25th Anniversary Tour of the massively popular jukebox musical (presented by Broadway Dallas).

I sure did, along with a packed house of happy fans on opening night.

Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus wrote the music and lyrics, and Catherine Johnson wrote the book, weaving together twenty-two ABBA songs for the original Broadway production in 2000. That’s a lot of joy to consume in two hours. Live productions have been staged globally—and literally countless times—since then. The 2009 movie starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfeid et al. is still a favorite. 

With Phyllida Lloyd’s deft direction and Anthony Van Laast’s infectious, physical choreography, everybody gets onboard from the rousing opening number (with all 30-plus cast members dancing and singing) to the grand finale curtain call.  All you dancing queens, and whoever came with you, gotta stand up, sway, and wave your arms over your head.  Don’t even try to fight it.

A mischievous proverb (adapted a bit) reminds us that it’s a wise child who knows their own father. Think about it. Your mother should know, right? But what if she doesn’t wanna talk about it?

In Mamma Mia!, young Sophie (a buoyant, headstrong Amy Weaver) is getting married, and is determined to find out who her father is, so that he (at least) can walk her down the aisle. Her tough and talented single mama Donna (a hard-working, tender-hearted Christine Sherrill) has raised her daughter alone on a sunny Greek island, where she’s built a small hotel from an old boyfriend’s design plans. Sherrill’s resonant, expressive voice leads the ensemble, and she’s especially moving in sonorous torchy ballads like “SOS” and “The Winner Takes It All.”

Mother and daughter are close, and clearly share a stubborn gene. Curious Sophie, who’s about to be married, has found dauntless Donna’s old diary, and narrows the prospects down to three men who just might be her daddy. And unbeknownst to her mother, she invites them all to the wedding on an island they haven’t visited in (ahem!) twenty years.  

Harry (Rob Marnell), Bill (Jim Newman) and Sam (Victor Wallace) show up, and comically discover that the only thing they have in common is Donna. Turns out, Donna’s unmarried best friends (and the partners in their long-ago pop trio) have also arrived for the wedding, and musical comedy takes its natural course.

Rich, sexy and thrice-divorced Tanya (man-eating mezzo Jalynn Steele) takes on the old dudes and young worshippers like Pepper (eager Justin Sudderth) with equal comic ferocity. Seen-it-all Rosie (raucous Carly Sakolove) is a hoot in her duet with balding Bill, “Take a Chance on Me”. Both partners are grabbing for their youth and anything warm in reach as they chase each other through the chairs set up for the wedding.

Light-hearted and bouncy, the show is also a surprisingly moving depiction of mother-daughter head-butts and reconciliations. Many small groups in the audience looked like mom/ daughter/ granddaughter combos, laughing together at the silly pranks, and smiling at the sweet stories the characters onstage share. Sophie is sure she’ll know her father at first sight. But you have to wait until the last frantic scene for that piece of plot to ignite and explode. There’s plenty of music and crazy antics going on in the meantime.

Camping it up or dancing full throttle, the entire company radiates good humor and high-kicking live-show energy. Sophie’s adoring fiancé Sky (hunky Grant Reynolds) leads the male ensemble in a wildly original dance number doing high kicks outfitted in Lucy Gaiger’s sleek scuba gear and impossibly floppy flippers. Over and again, the athletic ensemble drew spontaneous applause in big numbers like “Voulez-Vous” and “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”

Nancy Thun’s simple, cleverly manipulated set design is a series of irregularly shaped columns that become an interior or a village villa with the addition of a rising moon or a pillowed bed. Howard Harrison’s wonderfully varied lighting design cast the walls with a full spectrum of colors and shadows, from the sunny warmth of an island afternoon to the romantic blue of a rendezvous.

Conductor/keyboardist Matthew Croft led the seven-member band from the music pit, laying down the familiar ABBA rhythmic line. On opening night, the sound was way over-amped, to the point that it blurred the lyrics. Yes, even if you know them, it’s nice to hear the words clearly sung. At intermission, I talked to a couple of women sitting toward the back; they agreed the sound was too loud, even for at the cavernous Music Hall. “Maybe they think this show’s big fan base might like the volume turned up a bit on this round,” one woman joked. 

Still, virtually everybody stayed clapping and cheering through the last all-out curtain call—and I could hear people singing bits of  the title song and “Honey, Honey” as we all exited to the parking lot. I googled the video of “Dancing Queen” and sang along on the drive home.

I’m thinking Mamma Mia! can look forward to many more show-biz anniversaries as we go down the bumpy road of life, love and procreation. We mortals keep wanting (and writing) songs about all that—and Mamma Mia’s feel like they could keep us dancing forever.

WHEN: April 15-27, 2025
WHERE: The Music Hall at Fair Park, 909 1st Avenue, Dallas
WEB: broadwaydallas.org