The Midnight Train Crossing

Mamma Mia is a musical centered around ABBA songs, of which I don't know many. The plot is pretty simple: a girl named Sophie is getting married, and she wants her father to escort her down the aisle. However, she has never met her father. Her mother, Donna, raised her all alone. After doing some snooping, Sophie realizes that she has three possible fathers: Sam, an architect, Harry, a British Banker, or Bill, an Australian Adventurer (and author). Sophie invites them all to her wedding in hopes of figuring out who her father is, and wacky hijinks ensue.

We had a few understudies, but I didn't really make note of who they were. It was on the call board, and I didn't get a chance to make a note of who they were, so I'm going to list the first cast people - but I know there were at least three swings.

We sat up pretty high in the balcony, but front row. Good and bad. Good because there weren't people in front of us, but bad because there was a bar directly in my eyesight, so I had to lean forward to see the stage.

First impression was the curtain, which had swirling blue lights on it. After a bit of thought, I decided that it was meant to be waves, since the whole play takes place on a small island off the coast of Greece. During the beginning of the second act, that confirmed it, for the designs looked a lot more like curtains. And then they turned into a bubble pattern, spinning around and around in a sort of dizzying manner.

The announcer made the usual "No recording, turn off cell phones" announcement. Then he added, "And for those of you of a sensitive nature, please be advised there are platform shoes and white spandex in the show."

I thought that the overture was great! I don't know what sort of songs it was supposed to be a medley of, but I really liked it. It wasn't overly bouncy, but it was very very up beat, and just cool.

I liked all of the main characters in the show, I thought they all had pretty nice voices. The only down side was, some of the singers were hard to under stand. This might be partially because I'm not that familiar with too many ABBA songs, and I know that sometimes songs are harder to understand if you don't already know the words.

The set was kind of neat. There were two large pieces of set, both used to indicate walls. (They also both had doors). When they were turned facing the rear wall of the state, it was to indicate action taking place outside of the inn, when they were turned facing the audience, it was to indicate the action taking place inside of the inn. Putting the two walls next to each other and bringing in a bed represented the bedrooms of various people. The actors moved the furniture, chairs and tables, etc around during the scene change.

So now for my favorite parts of the show.

Sophie (Rose Sezniak) had a nice voice, and I liked her outfit in her opening scene. I have a long blue skirt very similar to that. Her friends, Ali (Rebecca Covington) and Lisa (Nicole Laurenzi) arrive for her wedding, and she reveals her secret about her father. The three of them are reading her mother's diary, and giggling over it. In a particularly amusing part of dialogue, Sophie and Ali are giggling over something to the effect of: "We walked on the beach, and we kissed on the beach and DOT DOT DOT." Lisa asked what that meant. I liked her friends in that scene, but I was a bit disappointed that they didn't have too much else of a larger role in the show. They sort of blended into the ensemble for the rest of the show.

Donna (Susie McMonagle) had a killer voice in her songs that she sang. In particular, the title song, "Mamma Mia", "The Winner Takes it All" and the very pretty "Slipping through my fingers"
She undergoes a bit of a transformation during the course of the show, from wearing overall type blue jeans to a nicer outfit, to a very very 1970s outfit, to a wedding gown. It is a nice reflection on her change of character.

Other highlights in the cast were Donna's two friends from the old days: Tanya (Michelle Dawson) a thrice-divorced wealthy woman, and Rosie (Kittra Wynn Coomer) a self-proclaimed free-spirit. The three of them used to have a singing/dancing group when they were younger, Donna and the Dynamos. Many of their scenes have to do with not being as young as they used to be. For example, Rosie would frequently throw her back out, or hurt her neck or something while they were dancing around. This trio sang the famous song "Dancing Queen" in an attempt to cheer Donna up. They also put on their sparkly white 1970s outfits to perform at Sophie's bachelorette party.

Moving onto the males in the cast:

Sophie's fiancé, Sky (Geoffrey Hemingway) had a good voice, as he demonstrated in his song/duet "Lay all your love on me" but he was a bit difficult to understand when he sang. Maybe it's because I don't know the song, but I had a hard time understanding. Still, he was also quite easy on the eyes, particularly since he seemed to keep getting stripped onstage. Alright, so it was only once, but it was kind of memorable. His friends were kidnapping him for his bachelor party, and they were going snorkeling, so one of his friends stole his pants.
That was one of my favorite scenes in the show actually (No, not the pants being stolen). Sophie and Sky are in the middle of their song, when about eight guys come marching in in purple diving suits, flippers and snorkels. The whole group of them marching around the stage and then jumping around in flippers was very funny.

Among Sky's friends are Eddie (Anthony Cefala) and Pepper (Adam Michael Kaokept), who officially work at the inn, but according to Donna, just barely. Those two were great fun to watch, even when they weren’t the center of the action. Pepper in particular, who insisted on flirting with Donna's friend Tanya. There was a fun scene where Tanya sings a song "Does your mother know?" while she basically shoves him around all over the stage. Towards the end of the song, Pepper does about eight jumps where he does the splits in the air. Then he "passed out" on the ground.

The three potential fathers for Sophie all did a wonderful job.

Sam Carmichael (Ian Knauer [understudy]) was nicely awkward around Donna. Turned out that he and Donna actually were in love, as opposed to a fling, or good friends, for the other two. He left her because he was engaged, but then realized that he loved her. He and Donna did not part on friendly terms. When the three men turn up at her inn, Sam is the one that Donna is most upset to see. During the course of the play, I thought it was leading up more to Sam turning out to be Sophie's father for most of the first act, but then it shifted to the others. Sam and Donna sing a duet "S.O.S" but it's pretty clear from the staging that they're not really singing to each other, it's more like they are thinking parts of the song. But his real song that he sang that I liked was called "Knowing me, Knowing you" where he tries to give some advice to Sophie after she has a fight with Sky.

Bill Austin (Martin Kildare) is an Australian writer. He was a pretty stereo typically crocodile hunter type of guy. At times he was hard to understand, with the accent and all. He seems to get along pretty well with Donna, giving the impression that their relationship was just a passing fling, mutually agreed upon by both of them. He kept striking poses throughout the show and he was just really funny. I think out of the three of them, he was the most comedic. It turns out that his aunt left Donna money (Donna helped her out). He was a bit confused at first, because he tells Sophie that his aunt left money to family. Then he looks at her as he puts two plus two together.
During the moments before the wedding, Bill, confirmed bachelor and Rosie, confirmed bachelorette start taking a deep interest in each other. Only the fact that it's moments before the wedding and people are coming in, make them keep their clothes on. That scene was pretty funny too, with Rosie flirting more and more before Bill finally gives in.

Harry Bright (Michael Aaron Lindner) used to go by the name Harry the Headbanger. He would demonstrate this by holding his fist out and bopping his head. He did this pretty much whenever anyone referred to him as "the headbanger." I thought he was the "nice guy" of the group really. Donna actually seemed pleased to see him. They have a cute duet, "Our Last Summer" where they talk about… the last summer they spent together. Watching them together, I got the impression that they were very good friends, but not lovers. Later he reveals that Donna was the first and last woman that he was with.
He offers to pay for the wedding, giving Donna a large check. He also sings the song "Thank you for the music" with Sophie, which I thought was a pretty song.

All three of them think that they are Sophie's father, and all offer to walk her down the aisle.

At the end of the play, during Sophie's wedding, it all comes out. Sophie was trying to find out who her father was out of the three of them, and even Donna doesn't know. That part was funny. Donna exclaims loudly that she doesn't know which of them was the father and all three of them stand up. After a moments discussion, they all conclude that over the past two days, they have gotten fond of Sophie, and decide that being one-third of her father is good enough. But, Sophie says that they could really find out…

SPOILER. Highlight to see

They don't. They never reveal in the play who her real father is, but Sam and Donna get married, so I guess that makes Sam her father. It's strongly implied that it's Sam anyway.

Sophie and Sky decide not to get married right away after all.

I have to talk about their clothes. I already mentioned that Donna, Tanya and Rosie dressed in white spandex jumpsuits with the rhinestones and everything during the bachelorette party. I also already mentioned the purple diving suits that the guys wore when they went off to the bachelor party.

There are a few more worth mentioning. At the start of the second act, Sophie has a nightmare about not being able to decide which of the three men is her father. The guys in the ensemble are all wearing dark clothing, but bright yellow life vests. The girls are wearing yellow suits and bright yellow swim caps. This is made even brighter by the fact that they shine a black light on them, so the people are very fluorescent.
As Sophie is getting married at the end of the show, she has her wedding dress, which I thought was very pretty. I'd wear it.

The curtain call was very very long. I think that the only one longer that I've seen has been the megamix at JatATDC. I think they came out and bowed in usual order, ensemble people first, then increasing importance up to Donna and Sophie. Then, they call came out and bowed in reverse order. Then they performed three songs: Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen and some other song that wasn't in the song list.
And during the course of these numbers, Donna, Tanya and Rosie came out in their 1970s outfits again, this time all brightly colored - Orange, Red and Green. Soon after, they were joined by Sam, Bill and Harry, also dressed in sequins and bright colors - Orange, Red and Yellow.

Overall, it was a very fun colorful show and I liked it very much - more than I thought I was going to. I expected to enjoy the show and have a good time, but I did not expect to be blown out of the water like that.