MAMMA MIA! — Page 2

Addressing MAMMA MIA! critics, that ABBA music is 30 years old is not a legetimate complaint. Mozart is older. He stands. Shakespeare holds up where modern playwrites are shallow. ABBA wrote and produced the brightest, most positive pop music ever. Their songs carry 2 hours even if the plot around them is thin. ABBA songs are like 3 and 4 minutes dramas. Their songs are character based. Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus went into theatre after ABBA and wrote the Chess musical with Tim Rice. They staged Kristina Fran Duvemala in Sweden. They tended in this direction from the beginning. That the songs appear randomly placed in the show is a matter of perspective. It hinges on knowing the songs before hand. If each one of us had written a book around 20 ABBA songs, the show would have come out different every time. Catherine Johnson had the idea first, so her sequence stands. Someone said that MAMMA MIA! is a party, and he was right. ABBA music was fun. It still is!
Jim Colyer