Mary PoppinsHell has no furry like a nanny whored.
Once upon a time there was this magical production company that wowed and amazed me as a kid. Every Sunday I would wait to see what The Wonderful World of Disney would bring into my living room during its movie showcase - Tinkerbell using her touch to bring the castle to sparkling life silhouetted with fireworks. Sadly something started happening. Cable, loss of innocence, Eisner, struggling comedians with nowhere to go? Who knows, but slowly all the sparkle got sapped from Tinkerbell's world. We've been left with bad remakes (Herbie, Dr. Doolittle, Flubber, The Shaggy Dog) and horrifyingly bad new material. Who the hell greenlights stuff based on theme park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion), pubescent pop idols (The Lizzie McGuire Movie), and sequels/spinoffs of classic animated stories (Tiger, Piglet, Little Mermaid II, Mulan II)???? Sometimes they surprise me (Straight Story, Finding Nemo) but lately I cringe at the plethora of garbage they crank out. And now they've taken their sugar coated crap factory to Broadway. Formula - take a popular children's classic, add theatrics and a few more songs, sprinkle with high production values, amazing sets & costumes and finish with special effects. Wham! You've got a merchandising mecca - programs, stuffed animals, towels, hats, toilet seat covers, whatever you can slap a design on and sell, do it. I've watched throngs of kids gobble up Simba dolls, Tarzan t-shirts, and now they'll whine to the parental ATMs for the Marry Poppins' umbrellas, tupins, and chimney sweep brooms, no doubt. So off to the rooftops for the review ...
Mary Poppins, the musical. The Broadway production follows the movie plot with the addition of several new musical numbers and the subtraction of all the magic. Mary Poppins descends from the skies to take over nanny duties for a couple too busy with work and social obligations to be bothered with their kids. Mary takes the kids on adventures and the parents learn to take more notice of their kids. The big songs are there - Spoonful of Sugar, Chim Chim Cheree, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Lets Go Fly a Kite - and they carry the musical. New songs - Temper, Temper, Brimstone and Treacle, and the horrid Cherry Tree Lane - are horrid as they only serve to show off vocal talents of the performers or to given more time to show costume & dance numbers; they never seem to serve the story. Bert, played by Gavin Lee from the original cast in London, has the most fun with the role but he doesn't get much stage time. Instead we get Ashley Brown as Mary surrounded by too many prats as supporting characters - servants, evil nannies, statues coming to life, candy shop owners, stuffed animals, and a menagerie of others - resulting in distractions from the heart of the Banks' family story. Dance, sing, bounce around, up, and over the stage and sets, keep 'em distracted and maybe they won't notice there is nothing left at the core. Where is the caring? Where are the lessons about family, class prejudice, imagination, creativity, the joy of flying a kite? There are only traces of these wonderful elements left over in the original songs and a few lines of dialog. Unfortunately they're obscured with modern entrainment charades and politically correct adjustments to Mr. and Mrs. Banks. What is left is acrobatic wires and confetti - both which look horribly sad in bright light.
2 comments:
saw it in London. totally agree. i hate mary poppins now! you forgot how scary the dolls are when they put the kids on trial-the little kids were crying!
Hah! They cut that scene from the U.S. version and just had the weird creatures dance around the nursery attic singing "Temper, Temper". Rumor has it that they didn't want to freak out the American kids.
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