Abba-dabba Mamma Mia! keeps the cash registers ringing BY STEVE VINEBERG
	Mamma Mia! Book by Catherine Johnson. Music and lyrics by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Stig Anderson. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Choreographed by Anthony Van Laast. Set and costumes designed by Mark Thompson. Lighting by Howard Harrison. With Colleen Fitzpatrick, Chilina Kennedy, Cynthia Sophiea, Rosalyn Rahn Kerins, Gary Lynch, Michael DeVries, Craig Bennett, and P.J. Griffith. At the Colonial Theatre through August 8.

Mamma Mia! is such unremitting and self-declaring kitsch — and such a colossal hit — that it would be easy to argue it’s beyond the reach of criticism, like the Main Street light parade at Disneyland. Still, there has to be some way for those of us who aren’t moved to spasms of delight by its machine-tooled ebullience to respond to this musical entertainment built around the songs of Abba and now in its third Boston go-round at the Colonial. Mamma Mia! is like an industrial translated into English from the original Vulcan. Its characters bear no resemblance to anything recognizably human.

The story is set on a tiny Greek island, where 20-year-old Sophie (Chilina Kennedy) is about to marry Sky (P.J. Griffith). Sophie’s mother, Donna (Colleen Fitzpatrick), once the lead singer in a disco trio but for many years now the owner of a taverna, has never revealed the identity of Sophie’s father. So when Sophie finds an old diary with the names of three young men Donna slept with around the time of Sophie’s conception, she goes behind her mom’s back and invites all three — Sam (Gary Lynch), an American architect, Harry (Michael DeVries), a British banker, and Bill (Craig Bennett), an Australian travel writer — to attend the wedding. She’s sure that when she sees them, she’ll recognize the father she’s always longed to know. And the arrival of her three erstwhile lovers stirs up in Donna feelings she thought she’d suppressed in her efforts to live an independent life free of romantic attachments.

Perfectly enjoyable musicals have been constructed on sparer plots than this one. The problem with Mamma Mia! is the lack of construction. To say that Catherine Johnson’s book is an excuse for 22 Abba songs is to give it credit for as much structural sophistication as, say, a 1920s musical comedy like Good News or No, No, Nanette, where the situations are stock and the characters are created to meet the demands of certain genres of songs (romantic ballads, dance novelty numbers, comic duets, and so on). But in Mamma Mia!, the pre-existing songs don’t fit together to form any sort of plausible story. So Johnson simply plugs them into her tale at moments that seem to call for a song, whether or not their lyrics have any connection to the situation. By what stretch of the imagination could "The Name of the Game," in which the singer cries out to a lover to define the nature of their relationship, become the plea of a young woman for recognition by the man she believes to be her father? In "Our Last Summer," Donna and Harry reminisce about their youthful entanglement, in "the time of the flower power," while Harry dons an old Carnaby Street cap. Too bad we’ve already been told that the year of their coupling was 1979. The only song that functions reasonably — it’s sung by Donna’s old singing partner Tanya (Cynthia Sophiea) and Sky’s horny pal Pepper (Eduardo Rioseco) — is "Does Your Mother Know?" And this number might have been a highlight if Anthony Van Laast had given the talented quartet of male dancers (led by Rioseco) any real dance moves, but just as it opts for nostalgia over dramaturgy, Mamma Mia! also substitutes generalized boogieing for choreography.

The audience is revved up to ignore these contradictions and inanities and wait for famous songs like "Dancing Queen" and "Super Trouper" as well as for the inevitable spangly outfits, remnants of a post-disco world that never existed. (These bizarre creations don’t make their appearance until act two — a tactical error, since they provide the only visual distraction from the ugly, utilitarian set. Both were designed by Mark Thompson.) The legendary theater critic Louis Kronenberger, whom I was lucky enough to be taught by at Brandeis before he retired, used to talk to us about certain musicals that, in his terms, were bowling balls aimed down the alley at commuter audiences. Mamma Mia!, with its belted ballads and Verizon-commercial acting and "ironic" nods at the audience, is the bowling-ball musical boiled down to its purest form: essence of cash register.