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I attended high school in the ‘70s, a time when musical tastes were very polarized. There were two camps: The rock-and-roll forever people, and the disco people, and they hated each other, although I never could quite figure out the reasons behind it. Most of my friends were rockers, preferring to listen to loud, hard-driving beats, and heavy metal bands whose lyrics were unintelligible and whose stage performances consisted of swinging their hair around and sometimes wearing women’s makeup.
Those high school friends with whom I am still in touch will needle me endlessly for this column, but I went to the Broadway touring company’s production of Mamma Mia this week, and enjoyed it. Mamma Mia, a musical featuring the music of Swedish pop band Abba, brings back pleasant memories of sweet high school romance when Abba was my high school sweetheart’s favorite band.
Yes, real men do love musical theater. I am fortunate to live in a town with a theater which is a frequent stop for Broadway touring companies. The Morris Performing Arts Center in South Bend, Indiana is an historic and beautiful destination restored to its full Art Deco splendor, originally built in 1922 as a vaudeville house and is listed as one of the top 100 theaters worldwide by Pollstar Magazine. It’s fabulous. (Real men are also allowed to say “fabulous,” and after we turn 50 we can usually get away with it without repercussion.)
The first time I took my wife to a musical was when I surprised her for her birthday with plane tickets to New York, reservations at a midtown hotel and third-row center tickets to Phantom of the Opera. It was the experience of a lifetime, and one of her lifelong dreams that I was happy to fulfill. Nothing can compare to Broadway, but this little Rust Belt venue comes close. True to the Broadway tradition, there are even a handful of cafes within walking distance which stay open for after-show snacks.
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On with the show: A review of Mamma Mia
It’s a light-hearted and fun story of a 20 year old girl and her hippie mom, living on a Greek island. When the girl wants to get married, she wants her dad – who she doesn’t know – to walk her down the aisle, but she discovers to her dismay that there are three possibilities of who that might be. She invites all three, and as you might expect, conflict ensues – along with dancing of course, and neon flare-legged pantsuits with huge popped collars.
The show in all was wonderfully campy with just the right amount of added ham. I love that it’s a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The hippie mom and former girl-band member Donna, played by Betsy Padamonsky, reminds me a little of my first wife, but despite that, I still enjoyed her performance, especially the lively rendition of “Dancing Queen” she does with her friends Tonya, a wealthy socialite (played by Cashelle Butler) and the cynical author Rosie (Sarah Smith). The three dads are hilarious, and Sam (played by Shai Yammanee) showed his powerful singing voice in “SOS” when Sam and Donna realize they are still in love. We even see the cynical Rosie showing a sensitive side when she falls for Bill (one of the dads) in a hilarious rendition of “Take a Chance on Me.”
After the curtain call the audience is treated to a reprise with the entire cast dancing seventies-style and singing some of Abba’s best-known hits, including Dancing Queen, Waterloo, and the namesake Mamma Mia. Donna and her two friends, along with the three dads, are all wearing the bright neon pantsuits and knee-high boots with four-inch stack heels – the costumes were fabulous (there’s that word again!) and the music brought me back to a simpler time of my youth, when I wore polyester shirts and had a pair of stack heels of my own, eight-track tape deck in my car, and I disco-danced to “Dancing Queen” with my sweetheart.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images