Again on Broadway, a much-needed summer time splash of ABBA

The historical past e book on the shelf is all the time repeating itself! 

It’s summer time once more on the Winter Backyard Theatre on Broadway, the place that dreamy discothèque “Mamma Mia!” reopened Thursday night time after 10 years away from Broadway.

The great, escapist musical, which pairs a romantic farce on a Greek island with the seventies ear-worms of ABBA, all the time hits cranky critics so much just like the lyrics the track “Beneath Assault” describe.

About to crack, defenses breakin’!

We’re not imagined to approve of jukebox exhibits. We’re not imagined to rubber-stamp sit-com silliness. We’re imagined to roll our eyes at platform footwear and blindingly colourful bellbottoms.  

Nicely, I say, “thanks for the musical.” “Mamma Mia!” is a much-needed trip from all of the seriousness and drear. And its foundations might face up to a nuclear blast. The foremother of the old-pop-songs-in-a-new-story style continues to be the easiest within the sport.

I first noticed the present greater than 20 years in the past, and proceed to marvel at its tautness and wit.

For these of us who’ve visited the fictional isle of Kalokairi and ex-pat Donna’s taverna an, er, redacted variety of occasions, there’s been some noticeable pruning on the Winter Backyard. 

What’s onstage is the nationwide tour — not a custom-built manufacturing for Broadway. So it’s smaller and cheaper. The stone ground doesn’t mild up throughout “Voulez-Vous”; the lovable ensemble by no means peeks their heads over the partitions after they sing the title tune.

That drachma-pinching irked me at first, however I used to be rapidly received over by “I work all night time, I work all day” Donna and her Dynamos and younger bride-to-be Sophie and her three attainable dads.

How can I resist ya?

Audiences actually received’t have the opportunity to withstand Christine Sherrill, the fabulous actress enjoying Donna. She’s among the many most memorable to tackle the half.

Because the overalls-clad “Cash Cash Cash!” enterprise proprietor, whose three former flames from the Nineteen Seventies all arrive at her lodge on the identical day twenty years later, Sherrill has the flighty enjoyable and smile of Goldie Hawn in “Overboard.” So, her pathos sneaks up on us fairly powerfully throughout “Slipping Via My Fingers” and the 11 O’clock “Winner Takes It All.” 

Sherrill bats the ballad proper outta the park.

As her “Tremendous Trooper” friends Rosie and Tanya, Carly Sakolove and Jalynn Steele breathe new life into well-worn gags. The laughs movement like ouzo after they sing “Take a Likelihood on Me” and “Does Your Mom Know?”.

Whereas all the time an amazing showcase of male abs, “Mamma Mia” has by no means been about male expertise. It’s not referred to as “Dadda Mia!,” in spite of everything. The gents all do their fatherly duties adequately. Victor Wallace enjoying hunky Sam, Jim Newman as rugged Invoice and Rob Marnell as fidgety Brit Harry verify the packing containers.

And that’s par for the course. Followers of the 2008 Meryl Streep film are inclined to say “no remark” on the subject of Pierce Brosnan.

And the younger lovers Sophie and Sky, performed by Amy Weaver and Grant Reynolds, are candy as ever.

So is the present, even when it’s frayed a bit across the edges.

“Mamma Mia!” is simply again on Broadway for six months. However I see no motive they need to throw within the towel so rapidly.

To cite a a lot, a lot newer track by ABBA: “Don’t shut me down!”