Word: mamma
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...from the ceiling. From the time of Orpheus and before, a subterranean journey has had psychological reverberations. This one bears just a hint of a descent into a stony underworld, a primordial cavern that could be the ancient womb of theater - even if you're there just to see Mamma...
...Italy in particular? "It can be extreme," she says of a child's attachment to casa and mamma. This extra-close relationship between Italian mothers and their children is thought to have its origins in the economic and political history of the country. For centuries, the Italian peninsula was a poverty-stricken place with weak governments, meaning that the family was the only source of protection and economic support for people. More recently, psychologists and economists believe the mammone problem is rooted in the economic precariousness of a debt-ridden nation that has been in gradual decline since its post...
...idealized picture of the American heartland, baseball, mom and apple pie feature prominently. The Italian version? Soccer, spaghetti and, yes, la mamma. But in recent years, the folkloric image of the doting Italian mother has been joined in the national consciousness by something a tad less idyllic: the mammone, or mama's boy, the hyper-coddled son (daughters are statistically less susceptible) who grows up so attached to his home, and to his mamma in particular, that he never really becomes independent or a self-sufficient...
...Jumping from one crisis to another, Kristina may prove not only too epic but too episodic - and far too dour - for a Broadway audience. The age of the serious musicals, your Les Miz and Phantom of the Opera, ended abruptly when The Producers and Mamma Mia! showed that theatergoers preferred perky, gaudy, old-fashioned musical comedies. But Kristina should find a constituency among those who love hearing wonderful music sung by gifted voices. If any naughty folks last night recorded the show, they should immediately post some of its instant classics: Robert's devastating solo "Gold Can Turn to Sand...
...Robert (Kevin Oderkirk, who earned vigorous shouts with each of his numbers) resolve to leave the land their ancestors have farmed for a thousand years and go to America. Despite Kristina's severe reservations, that's what they do, accompanied by Ulrika (Louise Pitre, the original Broadway mother in Mamma Mia!), the town whore who becomes Kristina's closest friend. In Minnesota, life is nearly as harsh; the characters are still buffeted and bullied by fate. Essentially stoic, passive characters, Kristina and the others triumph by surviving - by outliving their plagues and tribulations - until they don't. Endurance is heroism...