Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Here we go again: MAMMA MIA! returns to Broadway, once again spreading its bombast and balm

• By drediman
• August 19, 2025
• No Comments

This August, one of musical theater’s most iconic jukebox musicals has returned to Broadway. That would be the megahit Mamma Mia!, which has re-opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, the venue where the original production first set up shop a quarter of a century ago. This latest iteration of the musical is essentially the current touring production — a somewhat downscaled version of Phyllida Lloyd’s original vision (including Anthony Van Laast’s punch choreography, here performed eagerly by a young ensemble) — which will be lucratively parked through the fall and into the busy holiday season. But for all intents and purposes, this is the same staging we all know and love.

Mamma Mia! has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, a curious combination of both bombast and balm. Although the story is nothing more than an excuse for breezy fun and easy sentimentality, the book by Catherine Johnson manages to cleverly string all of ABBA’s best known ear worms — all 22 of them, including “Dancing Queen”, “Knowing Me, Knowing You”, and of course the title number — into a mostly coherent plot, and its setting in the Greek isles automatically sets the musical up to be a source of unadulterated escapism. Smartly, the show’s orchestrations stay closely to the blueprint of ABBA’s original arrangements, thereby instantly maximizing the nostalgia for these unshakable songs upon hearing the first few bars. The whole concoction is at once easy to roll your eyes at and irresistible, unabashedly appealing to the senses to get the endorphins in your system pumping.

The remount arrives on Great White Way with the touring cast, many of whom are making their Broadway debuts this summer, including Christine Sherrill and Amy Weaver as single mother Donna and her bride-to-be daughter Sophie, respectively. Both give perfectly respectable performances that stay squarely in the mold of those who have come before them (the same can be said of Victor Wallace, Jim Newman, and Rob Marnell, who play Sophie’s three potential dads). Faring a tad better as Donna’s former sidekicks Tanya and Rosie are Jalynn Steele and Carly Sakolove, who more emphatically put their own stamp on the roles (Steele, in particular, is a joyously sassy hoot as Tanya).

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MAMMA MIA!
Broadway, Musical
Winter Garden Theatre
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through February 1