Nina Metz

"Mamma Mia!" has got to be one of the dumbest shows ever. And it is also--in its own weird, tacky way--incredibly entertaining. There's the audience, for one thing. The crowd on opening night, packed with folks well into their sixties, resembled bobble-head dolls, persistently nodding to the infectious score. And then there was that gaggle of women a few rows back, drunkenly whooping it up at the start of every song. If all that doesn't make you laugh, I don't know what will. And what's the harm? It's not like you're there for anything else but those sweet Swede ABBA hits. The story--about a single mom, her twenty-year-old daughter's wedding, and the three men who may or may not be the girl's biological father--is bad. Real bad. But it's hard not to appreciate book writer Catherine Johnson's absurdly comical efforts to shoehorn in just about every single ABBA classic imaginable. ("The Winner Takes It All," the emotional climax of the show, is the only one that actually works in terms of the story.) And the show has all but spawned its own sub-genre: the instant musical. As if the Billy Joel songfest of "Movin' Out" weren't enough, the best of Rod Stewart hits the London stage this fall in "Tonight's the Night." Here I go again, indeed.

"Mamma Mia!" plays at Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts at the Oriental Theatre, 24 West Randolph, (312)902-1500, through Sep 7.

(2003-07-30)

Also by Nina Metz

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