Mama Mia brings fun to MUSON stage

Shell Hall, Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) Centre, Lagos, has continued to attract theatre goers in droves, as they troop in to watch the ongoing musical drama, Mama Mia, an adaptation of the ninth longest-running Broadway show.

The story is about a fun-seeking young girl, Dona, and her two friends. She meets three guys that she had a one-night stand with. Twenty-one years later, her daughter Sophie, the product of that ugly night, is about to get married and discovers her mother’s dairy. Sophie invites the three men to her wedding with the hope of finding out her father her among them, without her mother knowing.

The intriguing moment of the performance is the rush by these men to claim the paternity of the young girl.

At the end of the day, the daughter refuses to get married because she feels if her mother could go through all that, then, marriage is not really worth it.

The choreographer, Onah Uche, said it took six weeks of rehearsal to achieve the feat that has kept the audience glued to their seats.

According to Uche, “I have done lots of musicals but when I was contracted to do this, I realised it was not like those musicals, I discovered this was unique considering that it is not a Nigerian story but a western theatre play and since the time was already set, I didn’t have time to create as I would love, I had to create within the original Broadway idea making sure that there was no mistake, in terms of originality, standard and aesthetic wise.”

Commenting on the huge outing that the show has witnessed compared to the past, veteran actor, Bimbo Manuel, said, “it looks like the industry is admitting at last about the realities on the ground. The intellectual theatre that we use to do and we still do was clearly not connecting with the new audience and it is an audience that has to be carefully nurtured and developed because we experienced a slump that nobody will deny and now that it’s coming back, it’s aiming at the people we have. These are very young to middle age people and that is where the disposable income in our economy is now. Now, these group are inpatient, they are fast forward, like get it, get it, loud noise delight, colour delight and those are some of the ingredients that musicals present in our clime and we are still able to hide the message inside them, what ever message you want to pass you are able to do that.”

The ongoing drama is brought to Nigeria by Soji Akinkugbe and Ireti Bakare-Yusuf.