Mamma Mia! Dig in This Dancing Queen!

It's Lea sampling the classic ABBA song during her The Broadway Concert, by way of segueing into another Benny Andersson-Björn Ulvaeus melody, Someone Else's Story from Chess. The latter song made it to the DVD release, but not the (seemingly impromptu) Dancing Queen bit. Well, here it is--from my digitized VHS copy of the concert's TV broadcast. Consider this Outtake #2 from that show (#1 is here). There's one more, and it's the most special. Wait for it!

Speaking of Mamma Mia!--it's been extended until February 19, 2012. Weekday rates range from P750 to P6000, while weekend matinees are at P1000-P7000. It's a perfectly enjoyable and perfectly innocuous show, thanks largely to those indestructible ABBA songs and the brio of Phyllida Lloyd's staging (the dancing is superb). Irritating, though, what the usual media shills mindlessly lift from their indispensable presskits--that the cast gives "a heart-stopping performance" (check out how many times this line has graced pictures and stories of the show in the local papers). Giddy producers you can excuse--they need to sell their show. But the country's social chroniclers? It's their vapidity that's heartburn-inducing. There's nothing heart-stopping about Mamma Mia!, unless you mean the gorgeous male cast stripping to their short shorts now and then (but that's just me and my kapatids). The show is bright and fizzy and fun enough, thank you, and, yes, worth a trip to the CCP. It--and we--can do without the puffery.