'Mama Mia' Here they go again

For the second time, the international musical sensation is set to strut on the Tel Aviv stage in all its polyester, platform-wearing glory

By NOA AMOUYAL
ABBA (photo credit: Courtesy)
ABBA
(photo credit: Courtesy)
LONDON – It’s virtually impossible to detect what makes a pop song transcend being merely a few forgettable beats set to a catchy tune. Whether it is a combination of a specific turn of phrase, hitting the airwaves at the right time or a memorable sound, the Swedish pop sensation ABBA certainly cracked the code for success.
But when producers decided to apply that formula to the London stage 30 years later, they fleetingly wondered if there was an audience interested in hearing those irreverent songs anew.
Today, after 16 years on the London West End stage (with 13 years and counting on New York’s Broadway), 54 million tickets sold, $2 billion in revenue and a Hollywood movie (is there really a better indication of a bona fide success than Meryl Streep lending her name to a project?) the answer to that question seems obvious.
Come August, Mamma Mia!’s international company will hustle its way to the Tel Aviv stage, with all of its ’70s-era flash, for a 16-show stint. If its previous 2007 soldout reception is any indication, Israelis will lap up every saccharine, over-thetop, pop-infused moment.
“I’m really excited. I’ve never been to Israel before, and it’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go,” Niamh Perry, who plays Sophie Sheridan, told reporters mid-February while rehearsing in London’s Jerwood Visual Arts studio.
“My sister actually went last year when she went traveling. She said, ‘You’re going to love Tel Aviv, it’s amazing.’ She also told me how wonderful the people are, and that they’re really going to love the show,” Perry added.
When speaking to the cast and crew – who gush about their impending visit to the Holy Land – the context is a bit off, only a day before a letter signed by over 100 UK artists pledging not to accept professional invitations to Israel “as long as the state continues to deny basic Palestinian rights” appears in The Guardian.
One gets the sense that despite the prevalence of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, it has not seeped into every corner of the London art scene.
For the uninitiated, the musical tells the story of young and naïve Sophie, on the eve of her wedding, on the Greek island of Kalokairi. Raised by her single mother, Donna, Sophie is determined to learn who her biological father is so he can walk her down the aisle. Unfortunately for Sophie, Donna had three blissful romances the summer she was born, prompting Sophie to invite all three men (whom she’s never met) to her wedding with the hope she’ll “know” him when she sees him.
So what do the syrupy sweet songs of ABBA have to do with a young woman with severe daddy issues? Well, absolutely nothing.
And therein lies its charm.
The transitions from dialogue to song aren’t always seamless. Sophie’s rendition of “Honey, Honey,” for example, has her reading from her mom’s diary where Donna recounts her summer trysts with the three suitors.
Despite Sophie delivering the song with all the bright-eyed earnestness she can muster, hearing her sing “I’d heard about you before, I wanted to know some more, and now I know what they mean – you’re a love machine,” about her potential father(s) sounds a bit creepy any way you slice it.
But on the whole, most transitions work. From Donna’s launching into “Money, Money, Money” as her taverna falls apart, to “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” when Sophie and her friends plead for her “dads” to stay during one of her pre-wedding parties, Mamma Mia! succeeds where most jukebox musicals ultimately fail.
While ABBA songs on their own can sometimes sound like a ringtone gone out of control, in the musical they take on a humane element when coupled with the emotion and backstory of the characters.
“I have a theory that all of the elements are dependent on each other. It’s a lovely story, but when you put all the elements together, they connect and become something more than the sum of their parts.
They all hang on each others’ importance,” Carlton Edwards, the international company’s musical director, explained.
Despite not even being born during the band’s heyday, ABBA songs are still very much an integral part of Perry’s musical lexicon. “I think the music is timeless; I think it doesn’t matter that it was on the charts decades ago. I know [my generation] both grew up listening to the music. I remember the ABBA – Gold album being in my parents’ kitchen when I was five. And it was that and a couple of other soundtracks that my mom used to alternate on Sundays while cooking,” she recounted.
“I remember listening to the music and really understanding it; the emotion is so clear, the melodies so simple and so passionate, and I think that’s why this show is so successful,” Perry added.
While the show is infused with that nostalgia and sentimentality, behind the scenes, rehearsal is a carefully executed, well-oiled machine.
To precisely mark where actors should stand at any given moment, strips of colored masking tape of every shade imaginable line the wooden floors of the studio.
The actors spend weeks going over each choreographed flick of a wrist and shake of a hip until the chief choreographer is satisfied – and that’s a lot of takes.
“The beauty of the show is that it works and we can’t really stray from what’s been given to us,” Perry said of the long rehearsal process.
Despite the constraints, actors are given some leeway when it comes to the interpretation of their characters. “My Donna is very different from Meryl Streep’s Donna, and my sister played the role in the West End. So I’ve seen the show lots of times and I can say, hand on heart, that I actually love being in the audience as much as I like being on stage; I think it’s a fantastic show. There is definitely room for one’s interpretation of the role,” actress Sara Poyzer explained.
Surprisingly, though, the true pleasure of Mamma Mia! is not watching the actors, but observing the audience join in on the singing.
When Sam – one of the fathers – pleads with Donna to give him a second chance, the audience eagerly jumps into “SOS” right along with him.
Perhaps, too, when Sophie and the three fathers sing “Thank You For the Music,” with lyrics such as:
Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing, Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty What would life be? Without a song or a dance, what are we? So I say thank you for the music For giving it to me.
The words aren’t so much meant for the characters, but for us.
Tickets to the show can be purchased on www.eventim.co.il and range between 230-499 NIS. The writer was a guest of the production.