I hesitated when I saw Mamma Mia! return to Korea this year. My last visit in 2023 had been disappointing: Donna’s throat condition made the evening difficult to enjoy, and I ended up nitpicking the translated lyrics and dated staging. What once felt clever in 2005 on Broadway — manual rotations and visible prop changes — seemed tired two decades later. I thought about revisiting just to collect some photos and souvenirs, but the bad memory held me back. Finally, a Chuseok holiday discount tempted me into buying the cheapest seat, expecting to endure the show rather than enjoy it.

From the start, Sophie sang with a clear belt, though naturally not comparable to the crystalline sound of ABBA’s original recordings. Sitting in the third floor of LG Signature Hall, the newly built home of LG Arts Center Seoul, I first found the orchestra sound dry and heavy in the lower register. Yet the dryness turned out to be a strength: every lyric was crisp, diction perfectly audible even from the top balcony. I even heard playful effects from speakers behind me — proof of a carefully hidden sound system.

LG Signature Hall looks minimal, but the sound design is advanced. Slim double 12-module line arrays hang on each side, with subs and center fills supporting them. Delay speakers aren’t visible, but the balance proves they’re embedded in the walls and balconies. At times I wished the orchestra-only passages had a touch more reverberation, but that would blur the voices, and musicals rely on clarity. The hall can adjust reverberation from 1.2 to 1.85 seconds depending on performance, and it worked well here. It’s a space where the tech disappears, leaving only the music.

“Honey, Honey” set a lively tone, and when Donna appeared, I felt relief. Shin Young Sook’s Donna had the kind of voice the role needs: firm, resonant, unmistakably middle-aged yet vibrant. Tanya (Kim Young-joo) and Rosie (Junmyun Park), the same cast I saw in 2023, again provided warm comic relief. Sky was solid, both vocally and physically convincing, and the ensemble blended so well I rarely noticed them — a good sign.

The three potential fathers were played by experienced actors, each given a song to showcase his voice. These roles aren’t written as vocal showpieces, but their personalities carried the scenes and balanced Donna. Song Il-kook as Bill was especially memorable: best known as Jumong in the 2006 drama about Goguryeo’s founding, here he showed comic charm and a surprisingly warm singing voice. His pairing with Rosie became the most endearing romance of the evening.

One of my earlier frustrations had been translation, but this time it didn’t distract me. The lyrics followed the original meanings closely, and I was too busy enjoying the songs to nitpick.

The production still included the “Orpheus bar” during the bachelor party, which puzzled me. I had first thought it was a sly nod to Hadestown, since Sophie’s 2023 actress had played Eurydice. Yet even without that casting link, the bar remained. Perhaps it’s in the original English script — or just a local inside joke that stuck.

The heart of the show, of course, was Donna. Shin Young Sook may be a dramatic belter, but in “Slipping Through My Fingers” she softened her phrasing with genuine tenderness, as if truly a mother watching her daughter leave home. I remembered her Heidi Hansen in Dear Evan Hansen, where “So Big / So Small” had the same sincerity. She has a gift for embodying maternal love on stage, and it elevated her Donna.

The romance between Donna and Sam, on the other hand, remained thin. The book doesn’t give them enough material to justify rekindled love, so the emotional weight is carried more by the mother–daughter bond than the late reunion. But that is jukebox musical territory: Mamma Mia! bends story to fit songs. To its credit, it does this better than most, which explains its longevity.

At the curtain call, the cast launched into ABBA’s hits in Korean. The audience clapped along, but no one sang — nobody really knows the translated lyrics. I tried a little myself, but it was confusing, hearing Korean on stage while my memory supplied the English versions I’ve known for decades. Still, the energy carried me along, and I smiled through the chaos.

During “Slipping Through My Fingers,” I even found one eye wet — unusual for me these days. It reminded me of 2005, when the Broadway curtain call made me laugh through sniffles. Two decades later, the song still reached me in an unexpected way.
I had gone in expecting to endure the show just for photos and souvenirs, but left genuinely moved. With a strong Donna and clear sound, this production reminded me why Mamma Mia! continues to run worldwide. I may, just may, even find myself at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway one day — to see how it plays where it all began.