Mamma Mia! is back, live on stage in La Mirada, and even if you’re one those who saw it on Broadway (or at any time during its fifteen-plus years of touring the country) and thought “Meh,” you owe it to yourself to see how much better the international megahit can be when freed from its original Broadway direction, choreography, and design.

Not that Mamma Mia! didn’t already have its considerable charms.

Like the multitude of jukebox musicals that have followed in its footsteps, Mamma Mia! 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.

No matter how Mamma Mia!s you’ve seen in years past, this McCoy Rigby Entertainment/La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts production will likely prove revelatory.

To begin with, the original’s lackluster set has been replaced by Stephen Gifford’s definitive regional-theater design, an intensely-hued wonder that bathes the audience in Mediterranean blues and greens and terracotta oranges and golds reflected in Winfield Murdock’s equally colorful costumes (including some nostalgic ABBA-wear), with Jean-Yves Tessier’s ultra-vibrant lighting and Jonathan Infante’s shimmering projection design making the production even more drop-dead gorgeous.

Master director T.J. Dawson not only inserts his own clever bits throughout, more importantly he recognizes that there’s considerably greater depth to be found in Mamma Mia! if its principal players dig deep, and this is precisely what leading ladies Marie-France Arcilla and Gabriela Carrillo do, the former giving Donna a rich past life of turmoil and triumph, the latter investing Sophie with a young woman’s doubts and fears where love is concerned. Arcilla is simply stunning, Carrillo is luminous perfection, their mother-daughter rapport is palpable, and they’ve each got pipes to reach the rafters.

The divine Emily King Brown reinvents the surgically improved, much-married Tanya as a woman who embraces her curves, Candi Milo is once a master of comedic quirk as force-of-nature Rosie, and just wait till Donna And The Dynamos reunite for several of ABBA’s biggest smashes.

As for the three men who might be Sophie’s dad, I defy any Sam Carmichael before him to top Eric Kunze in leading-man appeal while hitting stratosphere-reaching high notes and delivering the acting goods opposite both leading ladies.

L.A. musical theater staples Danny Bernardo (Harry Bright) and Michael Cavinder (Bill Austin) create a pair of authentic characters with spot-on accents (British and Aussie respectively) to boot. (Caitlin Muelder was their dialect coach.)

Taubert Nadalini is a dreamboat of a Sky, Rodrigo Varandas and Dillon Klena give taverna gofers Pepper and Eddie plenty of spice and spunk, and Joi D. McCoy and Momoko Sugai perk up the stage as Sophie’s best buds Ali and Lisa.

And since regional rights to Mamma Mia come with a major proviso (producers are forbidden to replicate the Broadway version in any way), not only are direction and design the anthesis of carbon-copy, so is Dana Solimando’s inventive, infectious choreography, performed by Chris Bona, Gillian Bozajian, Markesha Chatfield, Juan Guillen, Brandon Halvorsen, Michael James, Ashley En-Fu Matthews, Jonathan McGill, Isabella Olivas, Christina Papandrea, Dylan Pass, Kelly Powers-Figueroa, Hannah Jean Simmons, Scott Spraags, Fana Tesfagiorgis, and Adam Turney, a Grade-A triple-threat ensemble to match Broadway’s best. (Pass gets added snaps for taking a throw-away cameo like Father Alexandrios and making it a keeper.)

Keith Thompson’s musical direction is as impeccable as the orchestra he conducts, with Cricket S. Myers’ sound design, Kaitlin McCoy’s hair/wig/makeup design, and Kevin Williams, Melanie Cavaness and Gretchen Morales’s properties design earning kudos as well.

Last but not least, Mamma Mia! 2021 deserves an added shout-out for the admirably diverse ensemble casting director Julia Flores has assembled.

Jill Gold is stage manager. David Elzer is publicist.

A surefire box-office draw like Mamma Mia! will pull in crowds whether it’s a great production or not.

McCoy Rigby/La Mirada have opted to go the extra mile, delivering a Mamma Mia! likely to inspire both its die-hard fans and those who may have poopooed it in the past to get up on their feet and cheer.

When the cast launch into the show’s trademark ABBA Megamix, I defy anyone not to sing along.

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Boulevard, La Mirada.
www.lamiradatheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
October 30, 2021
Photos: Jason Niedle

Covid Protocols: To enter the theatre, please bring a photo ID and proof of vaccination, either your physical vaccination card, a picture of your vaccination card, or a digital vaccination record. Masks are required indoors regardless of vaccination status. Eating and drinking will be allowed in designated areas.

Tags: ABBA, La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, Los Angeles Theater Review, McCoy Rigby Entertainment