Mary Poppins
Director: Richard Eyre
Writer: Julian Fellowes (book), Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman (original music and lyrics), George Stiles, Anthony Drewe (additional music and lyrics)
Based on: the Disney movie, which is in turn based on P.L. Travers‘ books
Cast: Annemieke Van Dam, David Boyd, Fiona Bella Imnitzer, Katharina Kemp, Filippa Lengyel, Meta Schumy, Moritz Krainz, David Paul Mannhart, Lorenz Pojer, Jonas Zeiler, Reinwald Kranner, Milica Jovanovic, Sandra Pires

Plot:
The Banks family have troubles with their nannies. The children Jane (Fiona Bella Imnitzer, Filippa Lengyel, Katharina Kemp, Meta Schumy – depending on the day) and Michael (Moritz Krainz, David Paul Mannhart, Lorenz Pojer, Jonas Zeiler – depending on the day) are out of control, chasing one nanny after the other away. Their father George (Reinwald Kranner) believes that they need a stricter hand, while their mother Winifred (Milica Jovanovic) is generally caught up in her own world. But then Mary Poppins (Annemieke Van Dam) shows up and takes on the entire family with the help of multitalent Bert (David Boyd) and a dash of magic.

The production of Mary Poppings does a good job of translating the film to the stage, though not all changes are for the better (and I don’t remember the books that vividly, but I think that they moved even further away from them). I enjoyed watching it.

[SPOILERS]

As I said, it’s been way too long that I read the books and I can only remember bits and pieces of it, though I know that the film deviated from it a bit. The play is now obviously based on the film (and less on the books), both in plot and in production design. I guess they took the music and built from there, supplying it with new songs as the changes to the plot demanded it.

The new songs are nice, though definitely not as good as the original songs (or maybe it’s just that I know the old songs better, who knows). I’m less happy about the changes to the plot. For one, they kicked out Mrs Banks’ suffragette background, and gave her the most stupid song ever – her kids go missing, and she sings a solo about how all she ever wanted to be was a good wife and that she can’t please her husband enough. Bleargh.
The other thing was that Mr. Banks’ redemption was moved away from a critique of capitalism. He doesn’t decide that the bank needs more humanity for humanity’s sake, accepting that he will be fired for that conclusion. Instead he is already fired quite early for giving out a credit not according to the guidelines, but it turns out that his humanitarian belief in the small business brought the bank a whole lot of money, so it was actually the perfect capitalist decision. It was an entirely unnecessary watering down of the mesage.

But other than that, I really liked the way they brought the story to the stage. It is clear that some things cannot work very well in a theater – like the freed caroussel animals or the floating through laughter. But they found creative solutions for some bits and intelligently cut other bits and packaged it all in a wonderful set with colorful costumes. In particular the scene in the park is a feast for the eyes.

At the end, Mary Poppins flies over the heads of the audience, bringing not only delight to the children there [my niece was fascinated], but also making her departure just as magical as her arrival.

Summarizing: Wonderful afternoon.