Mamma Mia - Friday Night - Ushers and patrons gone wild

[broadwayguy2]

Okay.. not getting all into the show unless anyone wants me too, but I will say the cast was great.

The house staff at the Winter Garden was awful.. rude, unfriendly.. utterly ridiculous. The people checking bags were beyond rude. One usher told someone not go anywhere near a seat unless he walked him there because that's what he "gets paid for".. even the house manager was terrible. There was a problem with an audience member, and he was told, he responded "not my problem". can you believe that?

Not to mention a certain usher dancing in the back the whole show...

Now.. for MY funniest moment of the week... a guy in standing room, obviously a huge ABBA fan, in a white bnutton down and white capris with curly dark hair.. he was very, VERY into the show.. singinga long.. mostly very quietly. Mostly. Halfway through act two, we get to the wedding, and the song "I Do" begins. Apparently, the audience member didn't know that there is a very pregnant pause in the middle of the song. When the moment came, the guy kept singing.. but it was LOUD! Out of the silence, you hear a voice singing "I do, I do, I do, I do" from the back of the house. The audience was in hysterics. The cast held it together, for the most part..

[FlyingMonkey1223]

I really love this show. It has virtually no story and no real resolution but the songs are great, it's pretty funny, and every time I've seen it the cast has had so much energy!!! I'm so sorry about that horrible experience though. I remember when I saw WICKED there was an eldery drunk man who was being abusive to his wife during the show, talking loudly, singing poorly during ALL the songs and the theatre staff REFUSED to do anything when I complained during intermission. I went home after the show and e-mailed the theatre manager and just got a "sorry, it happens" reponse.

[RentBoy86]

I've said it once, and I'll say it again. Mamma Mia makes people go crazy. I don't know what it is, but typical suburb moms will just go crazy and strip down naked and dance in the aisles or something crazy. It's like they're back in their college days or something.

[LouieLovesTheater]

Every time I've seen the show I've felt the same way...it's like that concert starts at the end and people go crazy...like Oprah-giving-away-free-stuff crazy. I think it's hysterical and, if it makes them happy, go for it!

[SeanMartin]

MAMMA MIA is one of my all time favourite guilty pleasures: fun songs, deranged story, wonderful production values. You walk in, put your mind in neutral, and think of England.

[BrodyFosse123]

I actually leave the show feeling the urge to book a vacation in Greece. Everytime I've seen the show, I was completely transported to that Greek island to the point I could taste the sea salt in the air.

Love it or hate it -- MAMMA MIA! is a great evening (or afternoon) to be spent in a theatre. No need to analize it or dissect it. Just let it happen.

I always find it amusing when people go on their "MAMMA MIA! sucks" tangent. Dude...relax -- it's a fu*ckin' Broadway show.

[GYPSY1527]

Mamma Mia sucks. I honest and trulley hate it. The music sucks, the story sucks everything minus Carolee sucks. Blah blah blah...

There. End of tangent.

[jv92]

It's an awful musical. Is it even a musical?

[goofy108]

i agree.
not so good.

[jv92]

I believe it is the most hated show among theatre writers. Fred Ebb went into a tirade about it in Colored Lights. It's a shame that people like this crapola instead of Grey Gardens.

[broadwayguy2]

The production is good.. for the most part. It is well directed, well designed, and very very well cast. Gina Ferrall is gold. The sound design is horrendous.

jv92,
Some people, me included, are able to enjoy shows for their intenet and place on the spectrum of theatre/performance and let show stand on it;s own merit. There is place for fluff and place for Shakespeare. Some of us also think that Grey Garden is a dull vanity piece written for a bland, frump leading lady who gets raves for singing something specifically written to sound good on her voice and monkeying a woman.

Fred Ebb is Fred Ebb, writing Cgicago does not a god make. Opinion is opinion and holds no water past that.

[jv92]

I was just saying Fred Ebb didn't like it. Writers don't like it very much because it completely throws every thing Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, etc. into the garbage. It's mindless. Mindless shouldn't run for years.
And to call Christine Ebersole a frump leading lady is quite rude. She's one of the kindest, most talented women working in the theatre today.

[ljay889]

red Ebb is Fred Ebb, writing Cgicago

- What show is that???

[broadwayguy2]

jv,
Not everone SHOULD write in that vein. If everything was in that vein, you;d gripe that there was no variety.
It's ENTERTAINMENT. Nothing more. Nothing less. Who is to say it should or shouldn't run for years. People want to see it. Let them.
No, it isn't. Christine Ebersole is frumpy and always strikes me as disinterested and bored.. not to mention bland, dull, and vastly vastly overrated. I have never ONCE liked her in a show I have seen her in. I did, however, love her Actor's Fund concert where she had passion and commanded the stage singing mainstream numbers.. until she started in with theatre stuff.. at which point, I wanted to leave.

[jv92]

But look at Chicago! Hell, look at Beauty and the Beast! There are two entertaining musicals that are well written. (Beauty and the Beast, despite its flaws does have a mostly outstanding score.) People see them. People love them. They're entertanment too and they're worthy piece of entertainment.

[goofy108]

[broadwayguy2]

Mama Mia, for it's intent and purpose, is well written. You have to remember that different shows, and different writters, have different intent. You have to judge shows on their own.. not in comparison. First of all, I don't find Chicago fun. That's me, so I won't touch that. Beauty and the Beast is fine, and it has it's own intent which is far, far different than Mamma Mia's. Mamma Mia inteneds to create a light hearted, fun world to display the songs of ABBA. Which it does. The gag of Mamma Mia is seeing how they wedge in the songs.. that is why the songs are not listed in order in the Playbill.
Mamma Mia is much, much better produced than Beautya nd the Beast. Beauty and the Beast, last time I saw it, looked like a cheap, low rent version of the film and the original production performed by a mostly lazy and uninterested group of people (witha few exceptions). Mamma Mia, on the other hand, is well produced, with first rate production values and a cast of talented, dedicated performers.

[BillFinn]

Mamma Mia is good storytelling and it's very marketable. You can't say that for many shows.

There's a hot usher, left orchestra aisle. anyone catch him? Hehe.

[logan0215]

There. End of tangent.

tangent:
n.
A line sharing a common point with a curve or surface and being the closest linear approximation of the curve or surface at that point.

[broadwayguy2]

*gasp* There WAS! I was gawking at him before the show.. he didn't have his first name on his name tag.. I was said. he was PRETTY! The twinky blonde boy working the Assisted Listening booth was adorable as well.. My friend (NJGirl) and I nicknamed him AL. Ha!

[BillFinn]

the one I'm talking about is tall, dark-haired, and I want to say he wears a cardigan. Really beautiful eyes.

[broadwayguy2]

no cardigan last night, but he was tall, dark hair, thin, and smoking hot...

[SeanMartin]

>> It's mindless. Mindless shouldn't run for years.

Three words for ya:

HIGH
SCHOOL
MUSICAL

[bjh2114]

Broadwayguy, I respectfully disagree. It is not at all well written. The book of Mamma Mia! is awful. And it is so apparent that they forced a plotline around the songs. It doesn't feel natural at all. And after standing through it for 2 hours and 30 minutes, to not even find out which guy is her father at the end of the show seems like such a copout. Personally I find it to be one of the worst shows I have ever seen ( and this coming from a hadrcore ABBA fan).

[SeanMartin]

>> The book of Mamma Mia! is awful. And it is so apparent that they forced a plotline around the songs. It doesn't feel natural at all.

It's not supposed to be natural. It's supposed to be awful. And of course they forced a plotline around the songs. One of the fun things about that show (amoung many others, I might add) is the way they telegraphy -- sometimes almost bluntly and with a sledge hammer -- what song is coming next. IMHO, it's a pretty clever device to get the audience hooked in, by playing this game of "Okay, here comes MONEY!" You can almost feel the recognition factor rippling through the audience. That's pretty ballsy, but they make it work.