Tickets for Mamma Mia

By JOY TIPPING / The Dallas Morning News
jtipping@dallasnews.com

At the end of the intermission for Mamma Mia!, currently onstage at Fair Park Music Hall, there’s a frantic, psychedelic disco-light show flashed on the curtain, accompanied by music at an eardrum-piercing level. My friend said it made her dizzy.

That’s pretty much my reaction to the entire show. And we’re not talking “gleeful, had a little too much to drink, so happy I’m limp” dizzy. More like “this is a two-and-a-half- hour carnival ride that’s making me queasy, and they’re not letting me off anytime soon.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love ABBA, on whose songs the show is constructed. But except for a handful of numbers, I’d rather eat nails than sit through another showing of this version, brought in by the Dallas Summer Musicals. If you’re an ABBA fan, you’d be better off spinning your home disco ball, glamming up in your bell-bottom PJs and cranking up ABBA Gold.

The plot, such as it is, concerns a young woman (Liana Hunt) who, on the eve of her wedding, determines to find out the identity of her father. She invites the three most likely candidates to the bucolic Greek isle where her mother (Michelle Dawson) has settled, and chaos, of course, ensues. But no one seems to much care who turns out to be Daddy mia, so there’s absolutely no conflict. This lends an “I can take it or leave it” blasé air to the whole affair – and if the characters don’t care, you can bet the audience won’t.

Of the two dozen numbers, only “Take a Chance on Me” totally fits the plotline and the characters. The delightful Kittra Wynn Coomer (as Rosie) and Martin Kildare (as Bill, one of the potential dads) convince you, albeit momentarily, that you’re watching a terrific piece of musical theater. “Voulez-Vous,” the Act 1 closer, also distinguishes itself, primarily by featuring actual choreography, as opposed to the pogo-style hopping that accompanies most of the songs.

Even the Dallas Summer Musicals audience, notoriously overgenerous with standing ovations, couldn’t be persuaded to rise during curtain calls at Tuesday night’s opening, at least not until the Big Finale. That was great fun, because it was just singing and dancing and over-the-top 1970s costumes. No unwieldy plot to make you think, or try to make sense of things, or other things that might hurt your brain.