Sarah on theater

Here’s ten assorted thoughts about this production of Mamma Mia!, from Sarah on the internet:

1. If you can be flexible, don’t pay anywhere close to full price. I’m sure it won’t shock you to hear that the audience is heavily skewed towards out-of-towners and first-timers, which means Theatr is full of “change of plans” resales etc.—I sat in the third row of orchestra center, retailing at $300, for $100.

2. Relatedly, though, buyer beware: audience behavior is pretty poor, not least because everyone knows the lyrics. (It’s not that serious of a show and folks are here to have fun. I mostly mean enter with realistic expectations.)

3. If you can overlook that, this is as good of a time as it’s supposed to be. It’s not a particularly quote-unquote “good musical,” nor a particularly quote-unquote “impressive production,” if you’re, like, putting your most ruthless critic hat on. But that critic is missing the point—all this show did was, you know, foundationally reshape an industry by simply, virtuously, unpretentiously giving people what they love. So have a heart. Dance in your seat a little bit. ABBA is timeless.

4. I think this production is actually fascinating. For the uninitiated, this isn’t a true revival, but the recent touring company of the show making an extended stop in one of the largest houses on Broadway. (The upcoming Beetlejuice at the Palace is the same deal, and while this isn’t unprecedented, it’s very uncommon especially to have two.) You can expect a modest portable set and a cast of folks you’ve never heard of, nearly all making their Broadway debuts.

5. That tickles me in its own way. It seems to me very consistent with the unpretentious ethos of the show that (while this undersells her background as a performer, it’s also true that) Christine Sherrill, who plays the lead, Donna, missed the call from her agent informing her that she got the part because she was busy teaching fifth grade algebra. Come on! Are you kidding me? Love that.

6. Sherrill is actually very impressive in the part. Her rendition of “The Winner Takes it All” especially gave me goosebumps. The rest of the company is doing good work too—this is a perfectly fine way to experience the show, especially for a first-timer like me—and not having a big star on stage makes it easier to pay attention to the down-ballot contributions. Many of the ensemble dance numbers especially are really well-executed (particularly the swirling movements in the centerpiece bachelorette party at the end of Act 1); you can see in the way they look at and place their weight on each other that this is a veteran company with a high degree of established trust. This chemistry extends to the principals, too; I really liked Carly Sakolove and Jalynn Steele as Donna’s best friends, both of whom have very good comedic timing and make meals out of their individual numbers in Act 2.

7. (Why don’t I have a longtime group of friends organized around the principal principle that I’m the main character and they’re the sidekicks? Note to self, must look into this.)

8. The Mamma Mia! machine continues to be a money printer. The lower-budget production values haven’t stopped this from selling out the Winter Garden and immediately leaping up into the top five grossing shows on Broadway. I’m not an expert, but my uninformed hunch was that it was a little bit of a gamble to do this with the touring company, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. This is paying off in a big way, and producers have to be paying attention, especially as the old business model looks more and more unsustainable. (The recent high-budget revival of Cabaret is about to close with an eye-watering $25 million loss. Where would you rather put your money?)

9. I wonder if this is an early herald for real sea change in the industry. I would strongly expect to see more of these touring productions on Broadway, and I wonder, in the long term, how this changes the incentive structures. I don’t want to be overly hyperbolic—not every show is Mamma Mia!—but if treating Broadway as just another stop becomes a lot more attractive to investors, it doesn’t seem like crazy conjecture to suggest that we’ll see more of a budget shift (and consequently, perhaps, a shift in talent, or even prestige) towards the touring shows. A sign of broader democratization of the art form, maybe, or the death knell for an artistically vibrant Broadway (if that even still existed). The open question is whether they can repeat the feat with other shows, too; pay attention to Beetlejuice.

10. You already know you’re gonna love it. Stop reading geeky reviews on the internet and go see a show. ☺️