Mamma Mia! at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival

Or: "That’s Pretty Greek."

 It’s the best mashup of Euripides and Aristophanes a classics major could wish for. A young woman grows up on a small Greek island under the shadow of her powerful and bewitching mother. She is soon to be wed but knows not who her father is. Machinations bring the three most likely candidates to her, sparking conflicts between bride and groom, mother and fathers, parent and child. That’s the Euripides part. The Aristophanes bit is that everybody has a party and carnal good times await those who wish it. But there’s not that much in the way of fate or tragedy for Sophie (Kailey Boyle) or, despite her past trials, even her mother Donna Sheridan (Jillian Kates), as they navigate the 24 hours of Mamma Mia. So what is it about this, this matriarch of the Jukebox musical; this international frolic celebrating a Swedish rock band molded by a British book about Americans living on a Greek Island with an Italian title?

Partially it’s due to the odd majesty of ABBA itself. While often branded as “silly” and ‘inane” and even “guilty pleasure music” there is something so very clear and clean about their sound and lyrics that taps right to the lizard brain in its cheer, and in its more somber moments right to the heart. I dare the detractors to listen to “Slipping through my fingers” and bow their heads, or “Super Trouper” and not be transported into the singer's platform boots, or “Take a Chance on me” and not feel joy coursing through their veins. And sure there are plenty of “Honey Honeys” and “Voulez Vouzes” and the story exists in support of rather than collaboration with the music, but d*mnit, it’s music that pleases the ear, taps the toe, and soothes the troubled breast.

So, query, how have the good folk at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival taken to this mercurial musical? The answer, with enough energy created by the ensemble to power a small town. Across Jeff Herrmann’s O’Keeffey stage (fleshy orange cottages and tropical skies) and in the unfrooféd but eye-catching duds of Tracy Christensen the cast bounds, jump jiggle and jive with a jaw-dropping display of athleticism and grace. I would be remiss if I didn’t take off my hat to Shayla Breille G and Any Keum and Ali and Lisa (Sophie’s Bridesmaids) Warren Egypt Franklin and Mack Shirilla (Donna’s staff) and Kelsey Brown, Katherine DeBoer, Tre Frezier, Courtney Hausman, David Holbert, Matt Koenig, and Daniel Millhouse. Together (special shout out to Egypt Franklin) they put out number after number of incredible skill, the lads and ladies with exhibitions of athleticism: cartwheels (kudos to Egypt Franklin), backflips (props to Frezier), fast fancy footwork, the most precise of turns and isolations, and electric spirt (Keum and Breille G’s specialties). Their natural talents, inspired and marshaled by choreographer Jaclyn Miller, the Ensemble complete a most brazen takeover and hostage situation of the show, absolutely entrancing us.

It’s fortunate then that the leads are able to hold their own in this sea. Boyle and Kates both bring sleek understandings of their characters along with their gorgeous singing voices. Kates’s voice is like a golden pond, low, rippling and warm, spreading out from her as her Donna expands, arms outspread like (pardon the blasphemy) a martyr in want of a nail. Boyle is more like the silver birches on the shore, bright and drawn upright in manner, her voice fluttering from crown to toe. But they also know how to have fun whether it’s Boyle romping around with Breille G and Keum or while Donna lies distraught on her bed being massaged by her former bandmates and best friends Rosie (Laura Welsh Berg) and Tanya (Jodi Dominick), who share an excellent comedic sensibility and whose voices pair in a raspberry in cream blend (tart, sweet, sincere, and good for you). We’re also treated to a remarkably true and heartfelt tenor by one of Sophie’s possible Paters’, Eric Damon Smith as dapper Harry “Head Banger” Bright. It’s not often that anyone can carry a line about (and solely about) Parisian croissants and still keep their audience, but Head Banger can. As for other dad prospects, Sam Carmichael (Nick Steen) stands rooted in handsome earnestness, the prickly past with Donna sticking at his heart, while Bill Austin (Alex Syiek) is having a ball of a time.

Still and above the beauty of the hoofers and the fervent passion and regal melancholy of ABBA, there is something about the connection of characters and dance that make this Mamma Mia more than simply a good time. It has its issues. The manner in which the ensemble is piped in from backstage to underscore solos and duets leaves something unthumbable but obviously lacking, and guitars sometimes continue to strum chords after they’ve been put down (and if you want to talk more about diegetic versus non-diegetic music in musicals you can buy me a drink and then buy one for yourself to throw in my face to get me to stop). And the eponymous number is just … weird; the song taking place during a split second inside Donna’s head as she rifles through her ex’s possessions and does battle with shrubbery. Kate’s is game for it, but it’s still weird. But there’s a special something that pings between the three former Dynamos. The production, impressive as it is doesn’t really find its feet until Rosie and Tanya convince Donna to try out one of their old routines in “Dancing Queen.” As muscle memory and immortal grace click-in the penny drops for the audience we pass from admiration into love. And that affection is won forever by Welsh Berg and Syiek’s brilliant and brilliantly funny take on “Take a Chance on Me.” It speaks volumes to Miller’s skills to have plotted a dance around so many mistakes and to then those mistakes beautiful, while Welsh Berg’s wily singing and Syiek’s intersections dovetail perfectly into each other.

So if all Greek tales have a moral upbringing (‘avoid hubris’ or ‘parties are better than war’) then Mamma Mia’s heart is that there are as many forms of love as there are forms of water, brackish and sweet, misting or torrential. And in the hands of these skilled artists, the audience is lifted on a fountain of it, bringing us to our feet well before the curtain call, jiving along with the Dynamos and their dependents, soaked with sweat and good feelings.