REVIEW
Bugger Broadway. If you want to be entertained, spectacularly entertained, you have to pop down to the Paramount and catch Echuca-Moama Theatre Company’s Mamma Mia!
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Because here is a golden moment in local theatre (and Echuca-Moama’s) history – and not just because it celebrates the company’s 50th anniversary.
Golden because as soon as the stage lights dim and the ABBA overture begins, your toes are compelled to start tapping, and you suddenly notice you are humming along and swaying in your seat.
The lights, the soundtrack, the anticipation — it’s all so gorgeously irresistible you are swept into this recreation of the 70s even if you weren’t there to remember it.
Like the Beatles, the Swedish sensations have transcended time and while not even the 1970s can excuse the onstage costumes of this more recent Fab Four, there’s something so innocently over-the-top about the whole experience you can’t help but embrace it all.
At times you might even want to wrap yourself in silver lamé and sequins and leap on to the stage and join in.
Where not a single actor looked as though they hadn’t been born to play their role.
Every show has its star, that’s how show business works.
But how many times does someone else unexpectedly emerge as soon as the curtain goes up and stamp their mark on the performance.
However, EMTC’s Mamma Mia! rewrites that script, whether they were stage centre, stage left or stage right because the stars were shining everywhere.
Genevieve McLindon, making a long-overdue return to the local stage, as Sophie Sheridan, the bride to be, is stunning.
She shimmers in every scene she plays, flawless in her timing and her voice is even more pure than fans will remember.
Alisha Beavis as her mother, Donna, is a focal presence throughout and while busy getting her daughter married, fending off a small legion of ex-lovers and juggling her crazy mates, she demands your attention.
Dillon Shelley as Sky (the groom-to-be) perfectly fits as the hapless male caught between a passionate lover with lifelong questions and her dominant mother and decades of secrets.
And then here comes those characters who aren’t the headline stars but who tend to steal the stage every time they wander out from the wings.
Starting with 14-year-old Parker Goulding, who was just mercurial as Eddie, one of Sky’s mates and worker in Donna Sheridan’s taverna.
If someone doesn’t snatch him up for great things in the very near future, there will be no shortage of people in the audience who would want to just wrap him up and take him home.
Or the three stooges — Sam Carmichael (Matt McLindon), Bill Austin (Gerry Oman) and Harry Bright (Darcy Elliott) — battle for the laughs in baritone after being deceived into attending a wedding for a daughter they know nothing about.
Overlooking the tragedy of their 70’s lycra-clad look (they’re probably laughing more than you) they smack it out of the park with their individual songs and scenes, all with strong voices, dripping with personality and playing it up at every opportunity.
Ivy Jensen as Tanya and Honni Goulding as Rosie are a scream.
As always, Ivy, her 1000-watt smile and stagecraft are magnetic and her athleticism in dance routines is high-octane.
Honni slots perfectly into her role as the one carting Tanya’s luggage and then making a play for Bill with a hilarious Take A Chance On Me skit which is priceless.
The dance troupe is dazzling, as good as any show seen here for a long time, and when they come out dressed in fluorescent 1970s psychedelia, it makes for one of the highlights of the performance.
And with the ensemble on stage as well, it is a huge cast, but you could not spot a single misstep or accidental bump as everyone gyrated through some complex routines on several occasions.
But when that whole cast is on stage, you could not help but notice the sheer joy on every face – they were loving every minute of what they were doing and inviting you to share that joy.
And you will.
Much kudos must also go to all the hard yards done behind the scenes, from the props to the very, very extensive wardrobe.
The lighting was slick, the disco ball did its duty, and the choreographer and cast must have worked unbelievably hard for an amateur troupe to put something this polished on the Paramount stage.
Directors Mark Thomson and Lesley Robins and musical director Chris McDonald have pulled it all together and if this is what you get as a 50th anniversary, we can’t wait to see what’s coming as we head towards the centenary.
What can you say?
What about yabba-ABBA-do.
Andrew Mole headed along to a full dress rehearsal to review Mamma Mia! ahead of the opening this week
Contributor