# Mamma Mia! What a Show! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 11, 2002, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamma-mia-what-a-show/118418 "2002-07-11T14:00:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamma-mia-what-a-show/118418/1 "2002-07-11T14:00:27Z")
I saw the national touring company perform the Broadway smash **Mamma Mia** last night. What a great show. Hilarious and energetic. Packed house gave a standing ovation and stayed standing while the cast rocked out with the closing two numbers, a reprise of Dancing Queen and then Waterloo. When I first got my season tickets I was a bit suspicious about a show built around ABBA music. I mean, heck, while ABBA could crank out a good melody and some nice harmony I was skeptical about how the show would flow. After all, the music wasn’t written to tell a story… the story was written to create a framework for the music. I first became hopeful when someone in the SDMB got me interested in **Chess - the Musical**. But alas, the thread in question was lost in the Winter Of Our Missed Content[sup]TM[/sup]. I bought the **Chess** CD and loved it. I thought, “hmmm, maybe this Mamma Mia show will be interesting after all.” (By the way, for those who don’t know, the “BB” in ABBA is Bjorn and Benny who also wrote **Chess**.) Bottom line is that if you have a chance to go see **Mamma Mia** , I recommend that you go. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bad_Astronomer)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamma-mia-what-a-show/118418/2 "2002-07-11T21:58:19Z")
I saw it with Mrs. Astronomer a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. The lead male was _not_ a great singer (matter of fact, none of them really was), but the show was fun, and I enjoyed it. It’s amazing how you can actually build a plot around 20 or so ABBA songs. We talked about that quite a bit afterwards. A couple of songs were especially cleverly woven in. “Take a Chance on Me” was particularly funny. I would recommend it, except the price was outrageous. I won’t be seeing much live theater like that again for a while. ---
**Author:** ![dinahmoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@dinahmoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinahmoe)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2002, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mamma-mia-what-a-show/118418/3 "2002-07-12T00:21:22Z")
A whole bunch of us went to see it in Providence. We all dressed up. No one else did. It was a full theater of boring people, and row 14, which was full of feather boas, glitter, colored wigs, and fun. The cast loved us:)