I honestly don't know which was worse, Billy Elliot or Mary Poppins, although I do seem to be in the minority in both cases, because the audiences were lapping it up. I think I'd rather sit through The Lion King again than see either of these over-hyped and underdeveloped behemoths. At least Julie Taymor gives you something awesome to look at. Both Mary Poppins and Billy Elliot have incomprehensible stories and hideous production values.
Mary Poppins the show is quite different from Mary Poppins the movie, although that in itself isn't really the problem. Stacey had seen the show on a previous trip, and we commiserated when I got home from the Prince Edward. His main gripe was that they seem to have gotten rid of anything that was charming and magical about the original and replaced it with a hodgepodge of random and unconnected material. I must say I agree. There's very little in this show that enchants, and plot is very episodic, with no apparent connection between the scenes.
One good example of what's wrong with this musical is the first production number, "It's a Jolly Holiday with Mary." Understandably, they didn't use the dancing animated penguins from the movie. But they've replaced them with dancing statues that come to life in the park, and the result is not so much enchanting as disturbing. The statues are other-worldy, hideous, and just plain creepy. There's precious little color in this number, except for the costumes on Mary and Bert, and the result is washed-out and lifeless.
In fact, the settings and costumes, which you'd think would be Disney's forte, alternate between the charmlessly literal and the colorlessly impressionistic. The house at 17 Cherry Tree Lane is a slow-moving monstrosity, and most of the rest of the set consists of lifeless black-and-white backdrops colored by the occasional lighting cue.
The added material, of which there is much, does little to enhance the magic of the story. In fact, most of it is tedious, distracting, or both. The added back-story with Mr. and Mrs. Banks plays like a bad after-school special about the importance of paying attention to your family. The added songs were uninteresting and superfluous, provided by the writing team who did Honk! and Just So. It was an interesting choice on Disney's part, but the results were unimpressive.
I had been looking forward to seeing the choreography by Matthew Bourne, he of the all-male Swan Lake fame. I was worried he might be a little too avant garde, but his work ended up being serviceable, if uninspired. One exception was "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," which was a fun sign-language sort of thing in which the cast repeatedly spelled out the word with gestures. It was at least lively, unlike the rest of the show. The only other number that stood out was "Temper Temper," but not because it was good. It's meant to teach us what happens to bad little kids who can't control their tempers, but it comes off as screechy, preachy, and visually unappealling.
I had also been looking forward to seeing American performer Gavin Creel, who started playing Bert this week. But Creel, a talented and engaging performer, is wasted here on a part that is one-dimensional and poorly defined. He's meant to be the narrator, popping up here and there, but since we have no idea who he is or why he's there, it would be very hard for any actor to make an impression.
I would strongly suggest giving Mary Poppins a wide berth. Stay home, rent the movie, and donate the money you save to some Jewish charity, which should make that anti-Semite Walt Disney turn over in his cryogenic grave.
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