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Mary Poppins
Nov. 20th, 2006 12:57 pmI saw Mary Poppins on Friday. It was pretty fantastic. It's different from the Disney movie, which I've heard is different from the original P.L. Travers books (she hated the movie although she cleaned up--5% of the gross). Anyway, the show is darker, and feels more British with its "naughty children will get what's coming to them" secondary theme. (The Disney movie is much more touchy-feely and Julie Andrews's Mary is more approachable.) One such scene is when the children's toys come to life, and grow quite large and put the children on trial in a song called "Temper, Temper." It was awesome, like something out of a dream, all these huge, brightly colored floppy-armed battered dolls and toy soldiers looming over the terrified children and ordering them here and there. Completely awesome but I foresee some nightmares for the kiddies in the audience ;-) However from what I hear the London production had the toys actually putting the kids in front of a firing squad!
"Feed the Birds" is absolutely lovely--it's a shared duet between the Birdwoman and Mary. Interestingly, it's a stand-alone number/scene--Mary and the kids enter, the Birdwoman approaches them, the kids are scared/rude and Mary sings the sing with the BW. In the movie, Mary is putting them to bed and sing the song as a lullaby, but also to put the thought into their head (to consider the needs of those less fortunate). This is then followed through later in the plot when Michael grabs his sixpence from the bank president and runs away to give the BW the money, which then triggers a run on the bank, which then leads to Mr. Banks possibly losing his job, which humbles him. It's all part of the plot. In the show there's none of that--"Feed the Birds" is just another stand-alone lesson. But beautifully done--there's a kind of "stage animation" with the birds as shadows against the scrim, and the lights in the cathedral come on as evening approaches. Just lovely and very moving.
There's also a strong antagonist for Mary--Mary takes off at the end of the first act, because the kids are snotty to her. The Banks family gets a new nanny who is this horrible sadistic creature, force-feeding the kids medicine and basically breaking their spirit. Like Mary, she is something not quite of this world, with huge, heavily made up eyes and this shrieky-looking face, a little like this:
She and Mary have a vocal duel where they outsing each other (I LOVE that theatrical convention--love it in Peter Pan and Annie Get Your Gun) and Mary "sings" her into a giant birdcage and sends her away.
There's a lot of spectacle, a lot of big production numbers that are dazzle you. "Jolly Holiday" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" are beautiful. But the best, most amazing moment was during "Step in Time." It starts out as this conventional tap number with the chimney sweeps on top of the roof. Then Bert dances downstage, approaches the proscenium arch...and then taps up the side of it. There's a harness holding him up; he's parallel to the stage. He dances up the side...and then across the top of the arch. He dances to the middle, stands there, and then hits his money note---upside down. Yeah. It's pretty fantastic. Mad applause.
My one quibble was the all the vague bromides, like "anything can happen if you let it." It gets old after awhile, and that's just such a vague sentiment that really doesn't mean much. But other than that it was a fantastic show.
Last thought--my brother Bart is gonna LOVE IT.
"Feed the Birds" is absolutely lovely--it's a shared duet between the Birdwoman and Mary. Interestingly, it's a stand-alone number/scene--Mary and the kids enter, the Birdwoman approaches them, the kids are scared/rude and Mary sings the sing with the BW. In the movie, Mary is putting them to bed and sing the song as a lullaby, but also to put the thought into their head (to consider the needs of those less fortunate). This is then followed through later in the plot when Michael grabs his sixpence from the bank president and runs away to give the BW the money, which then triggers a run on the bank, which then leads to Mr. Banks possibly losing his job, which humbles him. It's all part of the plot. In the show there's none of that--"Feed the Birds" is just another stand-alone lesson. But beautifully done--there's a kind of "stage animation" with the birds as shadows against the scrim, and the lights in the cathedral come on as evening approaches. Just lovely and very moving.
There's also a strong antagonist for Mary--Mary takes off at the end of the first act, because the kids are snotty to her. The Banks family gets a new nanny who is this horrible sadistic creature, force-feeding the kids medicine and basically breaking their spirit. Like Mary, she is something not quite of this world, with huge, heavily made up eyes and this shrieky-looking face, a little like this:
She and Mary have a vocal duel where they outsing each other (I LOVE that theatrical convention--love it in Peter Pan and Annie Get Your Gun) and Mary "sings" her into a giant birdcage and sends her away.
There's a lot of spectacle, a lot of big production numbers that are dazzle you. "Jolly Holiday" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" are beautiful. But the best, most amazing moment was during "Step in Time." It starts out as this conventional tap number with the chimney sweeps on top of the roof. Then Bert dances downstage, approaches the proscenium arch...and then taps up the side of it. There's a harness holding him up; he's parallel to the stage. He dances up the side...and then across the top of the arch. He dances to the middle, stands there, and then hits his money note---upside down. Yeah. It's pretty fantastic. Mad applause.
My one quibble was the all the vague bromides, like "anything can happen if you let it." It gets old after awhile, and that's just such a vague sentiment that really doesn't mean much. But other than that it was a fantastic show.
Last thought--my brother Bart is gonna LOVE IT.
