On Feb. 20, Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation presented The Ohh Mamma!!! Burlesque Show, a stunning, sex positive, wildly romantic explosion of modern dance, theater, eroticism, naughty humor, vaudeville, disco and ABBA.
Ohh Mamma!!! , which took place at Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph St., was a celebration of National Condom Day and, despite all the raciness and ribald humor, there was a low-key safe-sex message. The event, in its second year, had played standing room only houses in Washington, D.C. and New York City, and is headed for its final stop in Ohio.
Among those featured in the show were Season 6 winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars Kylie Sonique Love, along with former Prince dancers Sharon “Pussy Control” Ferguson and Lindsley Allen, along with Sebastian LeCause, Dante Henderson Hanson and Marlon Pelayo.
The packed audience was polite and respectful as AHF Midwest Regional Director Staci Mullins and show producer/creator and AHF Director of Marketing, Operations, and Events Max Alvarez welcomed the throng to the show. From there the audience went wild and stayed that way as performers ripped through a light retelling of the movie Mamma Mia with Love standing in for Meryl Streep’s Donna and a wall-to-wall soundtrack of ABBA hits.
Plot points and Swedish pop were really beside the point (to be fair, this reviewer is not an ABBA fan), but with all the precision dancing, witty costuming, non-stop energy, drama and cheer (even the bondage segment was happy), it was hard not to be overwhelmed. As for my distaste for ABBA, “Gimme Gimme Gimme,””Voulez Vous,” “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia!!!,” “Waterloo,” “SOS,” and “Super Trouper” never sounded so alive and punchy while some wise asides (a stunning “I Am What I Am” from La Cage Aux Folles, a disco infused attack of Neil Sedaka’s “Love Will Keep Us Together,” and a pulsing version of Prince’s “Get Off” followed by a winsome “Purple Rain”) kept the soundtrack interesting if not deceptive. To wrap it up in a nutshell, The Ohh Mamma!!! Burlesque Show was a flawless extravaganza with something for everyone.
