Review: ‘Mamma Dearest!’ keeps up Out Front’s tradition of madcap holiday fare

Three years ago, Out Front Theatre welcomed the ghost of Joan Crawford in Christmas Dearest, a holiday parody that had Crawford step into the role of Scrooge. This year, she steps into the role of Meryl Streep in Mamma Dearest! Here We Joan Again, a raucous skewering of Mamma Mia complete with campy costumes and gleefully butchered ABBA songs.

The plot — if it can be called that — follows Joan herself and adoptive daughter Christina retreating to an island villa while preparations are underway back home for Joan’s annual Christmas bash. Fed up with being the most frequent target for her mother’s vitriolic abuse, Christina resolves to locate her birth mother based on a passage she finds in Joan’s journal, narrowing it down to three possible women. If you’ve seen Mamma Mia, you should know what comes next.

Except that, rather than the relatively normal roster of potential fathers seen in the source material, playwright Blake Fountain casts Judy Garland, Eartha Kitt and Bette Davis in the roles of Christina’s potential mothers.

A campy premise to be sure, and one that is to be expected if you have seen any of Out Front’s past holiday offerings. Like those previous shows, Mamma Dearest is a farce through and through with a plot that only serves as scaffolding for the zany gags and old Hollywood references. Absolutely nothing is taken seriously here — neither the plot nor the laws of theater decorum. The fourth wall is broken constantly to hand-wave away plot inconveniences, and the cast seems to be having a contest to see who can make the others break from laughter (They’re all winning). 

For those willing and able to turn their brains off for an hour or two, it’s a grand old time. The biggest highlight is the array of hilarious celebrity impressions on display. Bekah Medford is a feral Judy Garland; Hope Clayborne’s Eartha Kitt is spot-on; and Jack Caron chews up the scenery as the foul-mouthed, imperious Bette Davis. Make sure to also bring your favorite Liza Minnelli video to hold up against Erica Lloyd, a charming cyclone of limbs and smiles who serves as a sort of unhinged emcee.

The core cast is excellent. Emily Nedvidek returns as Joan, having previously played the role in Christmas Dearest, and her over-the-top portrayal is hammy in the best ways. Anna Dvorak is an endearing lead as Christina, though she’s almost consistently upstaged by Rafael Sochakov and Hayden Rowe as Fernando and Chiquitita, the two flaming homosexual servants who serve as her confidantes and sidekicks throughout the show.

It’s plain to see that the cast is having fun, and it’s hard for the audience to not feel that and get into the spirit with them. The madcap energy of the affair does sometimes get out of hand — a fault of Fountain, who also directed the show, losing his grip on the chaos. The whole thing reads as an SNL skit that went off rails, but there is something quite enjoyable about it. 

Costume designer Berkeley Pillay leans full-tilt into the 1960s Hollywood glamour, especially in the grandiose costumes Nedvidek dons as Joan: She wears a new gown or robe almost every time she comes onstage. Cody Russell adds some nice touches to the scenic design, while Brian Jordan has a field day with the wigs.

Complaints can be made, of course. There are moments where Fountain’s script can’t seem to decide how much plot it wants to have, and, as a result, any attempt at giving some emotional payout to Christina’s story feels largely unsupported. And while the fourth wall breaks are fun, at a certain point they just start to feel like a way to cover up holes in the script that Fountain didn’t know what to do with — for example, the fact that the entire show has almost nothing to do with Christmas until the finale.

The songs are also fairly unremarkable, with mostly boiler plate choreography from Atarius Armstrong, though reworking “Knowing Me, Knowing You” into a gay love song titled “Blowing Me, Blowing You” is inspired.

Mamma Dearest is certainly not for everyone, but it is perfectly in line with what an Out Front Theatre holiday show tends to be — campy, irreverent, filled with pop culture references that only the older audience members are likely to get but exuberant enough for younger crowds. If you enjoyed Christmas Dearest in 2022, Snowgirls in 2023 or last year’s Murder on the Polar Express, then you will almost certainly enjoy Mamma Dearest.

Where & When

Out Front Theatre’s Mamma Dearest! Here We Joan Again is on stage through December 21. Tickets, $40.
999 Brady Ave. NW.

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Luke Evans is an Atlanta-based writer, critic and dramaturg. He covers theater for ArtsATL and Broadway World Atlanta and has worked with theaters such as the Alliance, Actor’s Express, Out Front Theatre and Woodstock Arts. He’s a graduate of Oglethorpe University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and the University of Houston, where he earned his master’s.