An evening at the theatre

Last night my wife and I (along with four good friends) attended a performance of "Mama Mia!", a musical built around the compositions of the Swedish group ABBA. While I'm not a theatre-oriented guy, I like ABBA's music. The group produced many world-wide hits in the 70's and 80's, which was the time when my wife and I were in our partying heyday. To this day, the jukebox in our rec (wreck?) room contains their (vinyl) records which we enjoy so much. As an aside, the disco setup in that room is still fully functional, the big twin 15-inch Altec-Lansing speakers, the prototype of the music-driven flashing disco lights which I used to build for hotels and pubs, the amplifiers all still do as well as when I first installed them. Now, our granddaughters play the music and enjoy the party ambiance - it takes us back to the time we had our parties.

Anyway, the performance of the touring group at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre was spectacular. The script has taken the original ABBA lyrics and wrapped a story around them, which essentially involves a current family situation brought about by the permissive atmosphere of the "hippy" age. The perfomers are a very talented group of singers and dancers - the whole performance was vivacious and a little bit ribald. About two dozen of the "ABBA hits" were the backbone of the musical. Funny enough: I think that the slightly "suggestive" character of the performance might not have been allowed on a theatre stage at that time, around thirty years ago.

If you have a chance, go and see it. Our seats were not cheap - we paid $100 apiece. I understand that there is a movie in the works, too; that may be a less expensive way to enjoy this musical. We had a great time.