Mercury offers an infectious but undistinguished ‘Mamma Mia!’ Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal The question to ask theatergoers these days is not “have you seen ‘Mamma Mia!” but “how many times?” The ABBA-based jukebox musical was performed on 5,773 occasions on Broadway between 2001 and 2015, has reached over 60 million people through national and international tours that stopped six times at Playhouse Square, and is popping up everywhere on professional and community stages now that the amateur licensing rights have been released. Three local productions of “Mamma Mia!” will be playing this weekend, including this one by the Mercury Theatre Company with director Pierre-Jacques Brault and musical director Eddie Carney at the helm. In truth, this paper-thin storyline is merely a vehicle to string together 26 of Abba’s caffeinated and highly synthesized ‘70’s disco tunes, which often erupt with very little if any provocation. But the songs are remarkably infectious, the characters who sing them are simply drawn and very endearing, and the romantic moral at the end of the story – that true love comes but once in a lifetime – brings back fans for multiple viewings. What has proven elusive in most of the productions of this lightweight entertainment that I’ve experienced is heart – a quality birthed by talent, onstage chemistry and artistic vision that is more than the sum of the formulaic parts found in Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ score and Catherine Johnson’s script. While the good folks at Mercury are loaded with talent, their efforts never manage to rise above the material. For more of this review, go to: www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/