ABBA-climactic: ‘Mamma Mia!’ should take a chance on hiatus

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"Mamma Mia!' runs through Jan. 29 at the Oriental Theatre.

Updated: February 27, 2012 8:22AM

Only the most confirmed of “indie snobs” would deny the irresistible delight that comes with hearing the songs of ABBA, that mega-selling Swedish-bred group of the 1970s and ’80s.

The band’s rhythmically infectious hits possess the sort of innately theatrical lyrics and serrated attitudes that might even have put a smile on those Weimar era masters, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. And the danceability and easy allure of such classics as “Honey, Honey,” “All Your Love on Me,” “Chiquitita,” “Dancing Queen,” “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” “Take a Chance on Me” (and yes, the list goes on) remains strong.

But while you can say “Thank You for the Music” to Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, you might not want to say “thank you” to the latest very average national tour of “Mamma Mia!,” now in a stop at the Oriental Theatre.

The musical, which spins an original story but uses more than two dozen ABBA songs for its score, began in London in 1999, arrived on Broadway two years later, and has played in pretty much every world capital ever since. But it desperately needs to be packed up and put in cold storage for a while. And when it comes out, it should be handed over to a fresh young crop of directors who might free the potentially rich material from Phyllida Lloyd’s heavy-handed staging and delve more fully into the heart that remains buried in Catherine Johnson’s book. That doesn’t mean the comic elements need to disappear; they just have to be given less of a sledgehammer attack.

The story, for the uninitiated, is set in 1999, on a Greek island with whitewashed buildings and blue doors that looks very much like Santorini. It is here that Donna Sheridan (Kaye Tuckerman), a former flower child with Catholic schoolgirl roots, has run a taverna for two decades — ever since a promiscuous summer spent there as the leader of an all-girl rock band left her a single mother determined to make it on her own.

Now, Donna’s more traditional daughter, Sophie (Chloe Tucker), is about to marry. But before she does, she is determined to discover the identity of her father, which her mother has kept a secret. She invites the three men mentioned in Donna’s long-ago diary to the wedding, including Sam (Christian Whelan), a divorced American architect, Bill (Brian Ray Norris), an Australian adventurer and writer, and Harry (Paul DeBoy), a British banker. Also visiting for the festivities are Donna’s ex-bandmates — aging sexpot Tanya (Alison Ewing) and hefty feminist Rosie (Mary Callanan).

Of course chaos follows for Sophie, the pain of an old flame is ignited in Donna, and practically nothing works out quite as planned.

The use of ABBA’s songs is invariably clever, and sometimes funny. And when Tuckerman opens her heart in “One of Us,” and gives her torchy, angry best in “The Winner Takes It All,” the potential power of this show shines through. But too often the whole thing devolves into the broadest of sitcoms.

These days a hint of nostalgia has attached itself to the show, for it conjures Greece just a couple of years before the euro replaced the drachma. Given the current economic calamity facing that country, ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money” and “Slipping Through My Fingers” takes on a whole new meaning.