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There are all kinds of touring musicals. Some of them feel like once-in-a-lifetime theatrical events. Some are long-anticipated glimpses of what all the fuss was about in New York or elsewhere. A few even start their Broadway-bound journey right here in San Francisco.
And then there are the shows whose draw lies greatly in comforting familiarity.
Coming to San Francisco and San Jose on its 25th Anniversary North American Tour, the Abba musical “Mamma Mia!” certainly falls into the latter category. It’s a show that people have either seen or at least seen around a lot, after many tours and countless local productions. And then there was the star-studded 2008 movie that even had a sequel (2018’s “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”), digging up more Abba songs that didn’t make the cut for the original.
As a jukebox musical of the 1970s Swedish pop phenomenon’s greatest hits, “Mamma Mia!” relies heavily on nostalgia appeal to begin with. That hankering for days gone by is baked into playwright Catherine Johnson’s book for the musical, in which a young woman who’s getting married secretly invites three men that her mother had flings with 20 years earlier to try to discover which one of them might be her father. Add to the mix the mom’s best friend and former bandmates from long ago, and it’s a downright nostalgia fest all around.
The plot has distinct similarities to the 1968 movie comedy “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” about an Italian woman who doesn’t know which of three former American soldiers was the father of her 18-year-old daughter, though Johnson has denied any influence. That film was the basis for an entirely different Broadway musical, 1979’s “Carmelina,” from the distinguished creative team of Alan Jay Lerner (“Camelot,” “My Fair Lady”), Burton Lane (“Finian’s Rainbow”) and Joseph Stein (“Fiddler on the Roof”).
There are key differences between the two, of course. “Buona Sera” is set in Italy and has many Italian characters, whereas “Mamma Mia!” is set on a Greek island among tourists and expatriates, without any Greek people in it aside from a priest. Most notably, the fathers in the earlier movie have all been paying child support for years, unbeknownst to their wives, while the “Mamma Mia!” fathers never knew there even was a daughter.
The plot is almost beside the point, an insubstantial framework on which to hang the songs. And even then, it’s sometimes an awkward fit, such as when one of the maybe-fathers sings bitter breakup song “Knowing Me, Knowing You” to his maybe-daughter as a way of talking about why things didn’t work out with her mom. In the moment, though, what comes to mind is probably not how inappropriate what he’s doing is, but, “Oh boy, I love this song!”
“Mamma Mia!” opened on London’s West End in 1999, where it’s still running to this day, interrupted only by a 17-month COVID pause. It’s the third longest-running musical in West End history and the ninth longest-running musical ever on Broadway.
The musical has a long on-and-off relationship with San Francisco in particular. It made its United States debut at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre in November 2000 on its way to Broadway, where it opened the following October. Named SHN back then, BroadwaySF brought the musical back to the Orpheum on tour in 2007, 2012 and 2014, and now brings it to the Golden Gate Theatre, right down the street from the Orpheum.
It’s also swung through San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts several times before, in 2003, 2008, 2011 and 2016. The first two visits were under the banner of American Musical Theatre of San Jose, and the latter two via current host Broadway San Jose.
After the show’s nearly 13-year Broadway run closed in 2015, the floodgates opened for local productions. And what followed was definitely a flood.
After its Bay Area regional theater premiere at Oakland’s Woodminster Summer Musicals in 2017, “Mamma Mia!” was suddenly everywhere. Some of the theaters around the Bay producing the musical included Center Repertory Company, Berkeley Playhouse, the Mountain Play, San Jose Stage Company, Hillbarn Theatre, Pacific Coast Repertory Theatre, WVLO Musical Theatre Company and Tri-Valley Repertory Theatre.
That’s not to say that the show is oversaturated; it’s just an indication of how popular it is. It’s a celebration of Abba songs that are celebratory in themselves, so it only feels natural that it would be in heavy rotation. The title song’s chorus, “Here I go again,” couldn’t be more appropriate.
Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘MAMMA MIA!’
Music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, book by Catherine Johnson, presented by BroadwaySF and Broadway San Jose
When & where: Dec. 5-10 at Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco; $49-$184 (subject to change); www.broadwaysf.com; Dec. 12–17 at Center for the Performing Arts, 255 S. Almaden Blvd., San Jose; $54-$179; www.broadwaysanjose.com
Originally published at Sam Hurwitt, Correspondent