Fresh new direction/choreography and a look infinitely superior to the Broadway/Tour design that audiences have been seeing since Mamma Mia! first opened back in 2001 are several big reasons to welcome the international megasmash’s arrival at 3-D Theatricals’ stunning new home, the Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts.

 During the ABBA musical’s 14-year Broadway run and its 15-year National Tour, no matter how many times you went back for more, you saw the same director’s vision, the same dance moves, the same design, the same everything as the West End original save the performers, and had Mamma Mia! followed the traditional regional route, companies like 3-D could have opted to rent the Broadway sets and costumes and/or recreate original direction and choreography, giving audiences little more reason to revisit Mamma Mia! than the chance to see local talent singing iconic songs in now iconic roles.

Fortunately, regional rights to Mamma Mia! come with one major proviso. Producers are forbidden to replicate the Broadway version, and 3-D audiences reap the benefits of this contractual stipulation.

 But first a look at what has made Mamma Mia! the ultimate jukebox musical, i.e. one which takes a bunch of hit tunes and finds ways to string them together as if they had been written for the musical and not the other way around.

Inspired by the 1968 Gina Lollobrigida comedy Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, book writer Catherine Johnson adroitly squeezes one hook-blessed, lyrically stilted ABBA hit after another into the tale of a Greece-residing young American who invites a trio of strangers to the seaside village she and her inn-keeper mother Donna call home in hopes of finding out which of her free-spirited mom’s long-ago loves planted the seed which grew into twenty-year-old Sophie Sheridan, about to marry the man of her dreams.

 The first thing audiences will notice about Mamma Mia! at the Cerritos Center is how gosh darn gorgeous it is, and however you might describe the show’s Broadway/National Tour design, gorgeous is not a word that would come to mind.

Not so in Cerritos, where scenic designer Stephen Gifford has created an intensely-hued wonder of a set that bathes the audience in Mediterranean blues and greens and terracotta oranges and golds reflected in Alexandra Johnson’s equally colorful costumes (including some nostalgic ABBA-wear) under Jean-Yves Tessier’s ultra-vibrant lighting.

 Then there’s David F.M. Vaughn’s direction, fresh and funny and blessed with bits of physical comedy that surprise and delight. (Case in point, a “Chiquitita” that has Donna’s best chums Tanya and Rosie not only attempting to serenade her out of her funk but also out of the bedspread she’s wrapped herself into to avoid their good intentions.)

 Add to that Dana Solimando’s inventive, infectious choreography and you’ve got a Mamma Mia! that seems brand new, not the least because for the first time Donna and Sophie have been cast as women of color, and with the gorgeous Sophina Brown as Mom and the incandescent Flynn Hayward as her daughter, the roles are not only in vocally gifted hands, UCLA grad Hayward is quite clearly a star in the making.

 The doubly bubbly Tatiana Monique Alvarez (Ali) and Renna Nightingale (Lisa) make for the two best gal pals any Sophie could wish for, L.A. debuting Clayton Jones is any Sophie’s dream Sky in both talent and looks, and recent Broadway-to-SoCal transplant Noah Rivera (Pepper) and UCI undergrad Ernie Figueroa (Eddie) could not be more adorably spunky.

Mature male roles are brought to distinct (and distinctly accented) life Michael Cavinder as Aussie adventure writer Bill Austin, Corky Loupe as headbanger-turned-London banker Harry Bright, and Martin Kildare as American architect Sam Carmichael.

Best of all are Janna Cardia, vanishing into nipped-and-tucked (and proud of it) Tanya, and Candi Milo, who takes the tomboyishly scene-stealing Rosie and makes it deliciously, quirkily her own, and like Brown and Hayward, both sing sensationally.

 There’s not a weak link in Mamma Mia!’s superstar song-and-dance ensemble (Brielle Batino, Chris Bona, Markesha Chatfield, Callum Gugger, Natalie Iscovich, Robert Laos, Timothy H. Lee, A.J. Mendoza, Nick Morganella, Jessica Ordaz, Christina Papandrea, Kelly Powers-Figueroa, Dayna Sauble, and Rodrigo Varandas), with special snaps to Varandas’s Father Alexandrios and Morganella’s got-it-flaunt-it bachelorette partier, and to 3-D for an ensemble as diverse in physicality as they are in ethnicity.

Allen Everman scores top marks as musical director, as do sound designer Julie Ferrin and Melanie Cavaness and Gretchen Morales for their properties designs.

 A fun-filled introduction to what is arguably the most internationally successful musical ever (though it’s got competition from Phantom, Les Miz, and Cats) and a refreshingly new look at an old favorite for those who’ve seen it umpteen times on Broadway or on tour, Mamma Mia! ends 3-D Theatricals’ 2017-2018 season with ABBAndant pizzazz.

Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts, 12700 Center Ct Dr S, Cerritos.
www.3dtshows.org

–Steven Stanley
August 18, 2018
Photos: Caught In The Moment Photography

Tags: 3-D Theatricals, ABBA, Los Angeles Theater Review