Mamma Mia! At
the Rosemont Theatre By Dan Zeff ROSEMONT—“Mamma
Mia!” is back in the Chicagoland area for the umpteenth time and one wonders
why it ever left in the first place. This irresistible show obviously has a
vast fan base happy to see the musical again and again. Why not find a theater
and keep it around for years? The latest “Mamma Mia!” sighting is at the Rosemont Theatre,
where the show is in residence for a paltry one week. It isn’t a perfect production, but there is
enough talent on stage to allow the show’s high spirits and the radiant ABBA
songs to shine through.
“Mamma Mia!” is the gold standard of jukebox musicals. The
creators started with about two dozen songs made famous by the Swedish rock
group ABBA in the 1970’s and early 1980’s and stitched them together into a
cheerful romantic vehicle about a mother and daughter living on a Greek island.
Daughter Sophie is getting married to Sky and wants to know the identity of her
father, one of three men that mother Donna had quickie affairs with 21 years
earlier. So she invites all three to the nuptials, without her mother’s
knowledge. The customary complications and confrontations ensue, ending in the
expected cheerful resolution, and everyone exits the theater with “Dancing
Queen” and “Waterloo”
ringing in their ears. The current production is touring the country and it has some
problems. There is far too much broad comedy, most of it instigated by Tanya
and Rosie, Donna’s two lady friends come to the island for Sophie’s wedding.
“Mamma Mia!” has its share of humor, but it isn’t supposed to be a laugh riot,
and there are an excessive number of attempts to extract easy giggles from the
audience through mugging and coarse low comedy shtick. The original director
needs to look at this production and rein in the burlesque elements. The casting is mostly sufficient, but the actress playing
Sophie lacks dramatic heft, diminishing the many conflicts the young lady has
with her mother, her boy friend, and her three possible fathers that provide the
spine of the narrative. The performer also was the major victim of some sound
imbalances between the pit orchestra and the singers. Too often the band
drowned out the girl, though this purely technical difficulty may be resolved
as the run proceeds. The Rosemont Theatre is not a happy home for shows like
“Mamma Mia!” It’s a vast and cold venue with all the intimacy of the Carlsbad
Caverns. A smaller and more hospitable theater would have accentuated the
show’s many charms. Having said all that, “Mamma Mia!” is still one of the great
joys in the modern musical theater. It’s been fashionable to take pot shots at
the show for its disco ambience, just as some people loved to ridicule “Cats”
when it was drawing sell-out crowds by the year. Well, we live in a free country with freedom
of speech, so people can mock “Mamma Mia!” at their pleasure, but they are
blocking themselves off from 21/2 hours of real pleasure. The hero of the show is book author Catherine Johnson. She
has written a story and dialogue that fit the Benny Andersson-Bjorn Ulvaeus
songs so seamlessly the unaware spectator might think the score and book were
crafted at the same time. Songs like “Money, Money, Money,” “The Name of the
Game,” “The Winner Takes It All,” and “S.O.S.” are embedded in the action like
they were composed specifically for the show.
The touring production still focuses on the revolving
monolith that serves as the all-purpose set for the action. There are 30 people
in the cast, so this isn’t a cut-rate staging. The chorus executes Anthony Van
Laast’s rousing choreography with high energy and genuine enthusiasm. Michelle Dawson is fine as Donna, especially
when she is away from the antics of her two girl friends. As the three possible
fathers, John Hemphill, Martin Kildare, and Chicago stage veteran Michael Aaron
Lindner provide the best acting of the night.
The large opening night audience clearly came to have fun,
and have fun they did, right through the extended musical curtain call. A cigar
store wooden Indian would jive in the aisles to the final reprise of “Dancing
Queen.” This may be the last visiting production of “Mamma Mia!” before the
show is ultimately turned over to local theaters. I can’t wait for the Marriott
Theatre and Drury Lane Oakbrook to take their shot at this delectable musical. “Mamma Mia!“ runs through Sunday at the Rosemont Theatre,
5400 North River Road. Tickets are $30 to $80. Call 800 775 2000 or visit www.ticketmaster.com. The production gets a rating of three stars. January 2010 Contact
Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com . ********************** Movin’ Out At the Rosemont Theatre By
Dan Zeff ROSEMONT—‘”Movin’ Out” is two
terrific halves of a musical that don’t add up to a perfect whole. The show is
a superb dance evening conceived and choreographed by Twyla Tharp, who also
directs. And it’s also a great rock concert that explores the songs of Billy
Joel—about two dozen of them, including the familiar “Just the Way You Are,”
“For the Longest Time,” “Uptown Girl,” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” The
problem with “Movin’ Out” has always been the difficulty of making sense out of
the story. The show originated at a pre Broadway run in Chicago in 2002
and got negative reviews because the narrative was virtually incomprehensible.
Tharp tweaked the show before its New
York opening and the result was a hit that ran
for more than three years. The road company played in Chicago a few
seasons ago and the improvement was obvious, and welcome. “Movin’
Out” returned to Chicagoland for a brief five-performance run at the Rosemont
Theatre over the past weekend. The storytelling problems still haven’t been
entirely resolved but the Billy Joel music and the Tharp choreography easily
carried the show. “Movin’
Out” is a kind of “Mamma Mia!” with a sense of serious purpose. The creators
took a selection of independently composed Billy Joel songs and assembled them into
what attempted to be a coherent narrative. The show relies entirely on dance
and music. There is no spoken dialogue. The playbill carries a brief synopsis
of the story that is helpful but ultimately inadequate to the viewer as the 24
scenes unfold over two acts. “Basically,”Movin’
Out” deals with the impact of the Vietnam War on a group of young men and women
on Long Island during the 1960’s. The core characters are a pair of couples,
Brenda and Eddie and Judy and James. Both men and their friend Tony go off to
war but only Eddie and Tony return. The
first act contains most of the Billy Joel hit songs but the storyline remains
elusive. The second act raises the show’s emotional temperature enormously and
the dancing ascends to an exhilarating, and dramatic level. Much of the second
act portrays the burnout suffered by the young men who returned from Vietnam,
burdened by guilt at what they saw and did in the war and haunted by nightmares
of the violence. The
staging is simple but effective. A rock band performs on a platform that overhangs
the rear of the stage. A pianist/vocalist sings all the songs, an exhausting
role that requires three men to rotate from show to show. Kyle Martin occupied
the piano/singer chair on Friday night, belting out the songs very much in the
Billy Joel vocal style. His backup band was outstanding, especially tenor saxophonist
John Summers. Aside
from a few props and some vivid lighting effects, the show visually belongs to
the 14-member ensemble. On Friday night, the key roles were danced by Lawrence
Neuhauser (Eddie), Ashlee DuPre (Brenda), Adam Dulin-Tavares (Tony), Stacey L.
Harris (Judy), and Gregory DeSantis (James). Neuhauser had the showiest role
and he was terrific in his expressive athleticism and energy. DuPre and Harris
carried the female dancing assignments with splendid technique melded with a
high quotient of emotion. The ensemble, several of whom take featured roles
during the tour, were all first rate.
The
choreography was a mixture of ballet, Broadway, jazz, and, well, Twyla Tharp.
The cast’s motor never stopped racing and the ensemble scenes in the second act
were both gripping in mood and buoyant in execution. After
a shaky early history, “Movin’ Out” turned out to be one of the significant
musicals of the early 2000’s. Given the specialized and demanding nature of the
show, we may never see a Broadway caliber production like this again, so the
fortunate people who attended one of the weekend performances enjoyed a
theatrical and dramatic experience that may never be duplicated. What
the audience didn’t treasure was the jaw-dropping $20 fee to park in the
Rosemont Theatre lot, and it was cash only. February 2009
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The Radio City Christmas Spectacular
at the Rosemont Theatre
By Dan Zeff
ROSEMONT—The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is back at the Rosemont Theatre for its ninth visit, with all its abundant glories and a small number of defects. Regreattably, the show won’t be around for the Christmas season, closing almost a month before December 25. But there is still time to catch the supreme family entertainment of the holiday season.Let’s get the quibbles out of the way first. The show has too much Santa Claus, an odd charge given the nature of the show. Santa is used as a master of ceremonies, which is fine, but he occupies too much stage time. Santa is supposed to be a feel good character but he’s just gushy. Worse is Mrs. Claus, acting like a bad caricature of Lucille Ball. Less Santa and no wife would enhance the show considerably. And the producers can eliminate the unnecesaary intermission, even if it costs the concessions a few dollars. The New York City version plays straight through and is the better for it.
The pleasures of the Spectacular start with the Rockettes, as authentic a slice of Americana since their birth in 1932 as a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post magazine cover. The chorus line of 18 leggy and perpetually smiling Rockettes still kicks with amazing geometric precision. Every moment they were on stage was a joy, beginning with the show stopping take on “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” Their trademark “The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” continues to be an audience favorite.
Being a traveling show, the Spectacular can’t deliver the technical whizz bang of the permanent show in the Radio City Music Hall, but the costumes are dazzling. The color and invention of the outfits drew constant applause from the appreciative audience, from the giant toy animal outfits to the Rockettes wearing their scanty Santa Claus wardrobe.
Not that the sets and lighting are low budget. The physical production is loaded with pageantry, down to shooting ribbons into the front rows of the audience. The music covers virtually every familiar Christmas song ever composed, both sacred and profane. Much of the singing comes from an ostentatiously wholesome group of singer-dancers who alternate with the Rockettes, giving everyone time for the countless costume changes.
The singer-dancers are featured in the “Christmas in New York” number, which now omits the figure skating exhibition in a mock Rockefeller Center. Its loss isn’t critical but it was still a charming bit. And for some reason, the “Hallelujah” chorus was dropped from the “Nativity” finale, again, not a crucial loss, but what’s Christmas without the “Hallelujah” chorus"?
The “Nativity” scene is just as tasteful and impressive as ever. The children in the audience will love the donkey, two camels, and flock of sheep brought on stage for Biblical authenticity. It was a hoot watching the expressions on the faces of the sheep, wondering what they heck they were doing on the stage and who were all those people in the audience?
The Spectacular remains the great anthology show of the holiday season. What other show provides Santa Claus and “The Nutcracker” and snowfall and presents and Christmas carols and the Rockettes? If management could somehow work in a reference to Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” the production would really give everything.
For more information contact: www.chicaolandpops.com
The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars
Nov. 2007
Contact us : zeffdaniel@yahoo.com