Mamma Mia! CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
The prospect of a court injunction did not materialize at all, as the West End and Broadway hit musical “Mamma Mia!” opened to a full-house audience on Tuesday night at the Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
“There was no threat to file a TRO (temporary restraining order) against ‘Mamma Mia!,’” Ogie Alcasid, president of the Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone Wednesday. “We are not combative … The issue was mishandled. We’d rather talk about it amicably.”
Alcasid was referring to the payment of equity clearance of P5,000 per performer per show date that all foreign productions must comply with, which is bound by a memorandum of agreement between the local singers’ union and the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
Equity clearance
On Saturday the Inquirer quoted OPM executive director Elmar Beltran Ingles as saying that Concertus Inc., local promoter of “Mamma Mia!,” allegedly failed to pay the equity clearance.
But Concertus managing director Bambi Verzo countered that the BI had issued a special permit for the show, which will have a four-week run.
“We were being charged double [from the original amount of P900,000] because OPM said December to February is a peak season for local shows. We discussed the situation with the BI,” Verzo said.
“We followed the rules,” James Cundall, head of Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, the show’s main promoter, told the Inquirer during intermission on Tuesday, adding that his team is not out to clash with Philippine productions but “to widen the theater market by bring world-class entertainment to Filipinos.”
ABBA songs
“Mamma Mia!”—written by British playwright Catherine Johnson based on 22 songs of the Swedish pop group ABBA—is a fictional story of romance, filial ties and confronting past secrets as a single mother, Donna, and her daughter, Sophie, prepare for the latter’s wedding. Conflict ensues when the daughter, seeking the identity of her real father, invites to her wedding three men who have had intimate relations with her mother.
The show’s biggest appeal is how ABBA’s songs connect to the plot: Donna singing “Mamma Mia!” upon seeing her ex-lovers; her best friends (former members of their singing group Donna and the Dynamos) warbling “Chiquitita” as they comfort her; Sophie rendering “The Name of the Game” as she asks her mother’s exes to stick to her plan; and other tunes (“SOS;” “Knowing Me, Knowing You;” “The Winner Takes It All;” “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do;” “I Have a Dream”) capturing the essence of particular situations.
Fun element
Though there is a tendency from the actors to resort to boisterous acts in some scenes that connote sexuality, the play makes an important statement when Sophie and her fiancée agree to call off their wedding to give them more time to mature.
The music’s fun element doesn’t stop when the curtains fall; audiences are bound to lose their inhibitions in the encore numbers—when Donna and the Dynamos appear in full-glam outfits, joined later by her three exes, in a finale tribute to the infectious charm of ABBA’s songs.
“Mamma Mia!” runs until February 19.
“If everything turns out fine, we’re ready to bring ‘Phantom of the Opera’ next,” said Cundall.