Mary Poppins Reviews- Page 2

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 10:39pm

Never mind...doesn't come off right on the Internet.

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 10:39 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 10:40pm

This thread is getting dirty.


And Margo... thanks for the laugh.

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 10:45pm

Dirty?! Maybe I should rephrase that latter post!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 10:46pm

Theatremania is Mixed-to-Positive:

"One of the first-act production numbers in the production-number-heavy Mary Poppins, which is based on both the beloved 1965 film with a peppy score by Richard B. and Robert M. Sherman and the original stories of P.L. Travers, is "Jolly Holiday." But the song, which takes some startling liberties with the beloved film number, is also the first hint that "jolly" is hardly the right word to apply to this new musical.

Nonetheless, Mary Poppins has been put together with such thoroughgoing determination and calculation by co-producers Disney and Cameron Mackintosh, librettist Julian Fellowes, supplementary songwriters Anthony Drewe and George Stiles, and choreographers Matthew Bourne and Stephen Mear that it's indisputably effective in its monumental effort to snatch the hearts and minds of children of all ages. Effective as it may be, the show is also a gigantic machine. Every cog and wheel, including Bob Crowley's jolly-enough Victorian sets and costumes, is securely in place and well oiled. Indeed, Mary Poppins is reminiscent of a Swiss cuckoo clock that goes off precisely when and how it should. Where it might glow with humanity, it's too often mechanical, as if its primary materials are steel and wood rather than Travers' insights about British society.

_______________________________________________________________


Sadly, the show's stiffness begins with Brown's performance. Sometimes sounding like her silvery-voiced film predecessor Julie Andrews and confidently jutting forward an Andrews-like jaw, Brown sings clearly, dances crisply, and acts with authority; repeatedly ascending a staircase to the top-floor nursery, she makes sure that her arms are held tautly out from her sides with palms bent back. But Brown is off-putting in a way that Travers' no-nonsense figure never is. The reason is the permanent-press smile Brown wears. For the record, the illustrations in Travers' adored books never show Mary Poppins with more than a slightly pleased expression. But Brown's smile is the smile of someone trying to put something over on you, which may be all too emblematic of this whole affair.

______________________________________________________________


Still, the show also boasts several moments of bona fide theatrical magic that occur at the finish and won't be described here. But the audience reaction to them may be worth the lofty admission price. Rarely have so many faces lighted up so literally. "

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/9472

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:14pm

My gal Linda has her NEWSDAY review up. It's negative to lukewarm, which is not a good sign- as she tends to be among the gentler critics, particularly with family shows.

---------------------------------
Well, she flies. She opens her parrot-handled umbrella, takes hold of her carpetbag, then soars out and up over the seats at the New Amsterdam Theatre - presumably to a place where a magic nanny can hole up until required by the next unruly family.

Excellent flying.

Otherwise, "Mary Poppins," the show for which "The Lion King" got kicked to the Minskoff Theatre, is a quaint, muddled, beautiful-looking musical with plenty of spectacle but even more emotional distance.

A first collaboration between Disney, which owns the 1964 movie, and Cameron Mackintosh, who has the hard-won rights to P.L. Travers' Poppins stories, this much-anticipated London transfer manages to be both darker and blander than the beloved film.

Consider us spoiled. Since "Lion King," we have grown to expect creative ground to be broken in a Disney production. Even when the adventures go astray, the brand has come to promise more than conventional storytelling and a big set.

Richard Eyre, who specialized in prickly dramas during his tenure at the National Theatre, has directed a busy, supremely competent event - and that may be enough on family-friendly Broadway these days. The search for the perfect nanny, after all, has never been more topical across the social classes. Who wouldn't want a maternal Lone Ranger to swoop down on vaguely troubled families, get bratty children in line, fix shaky marriages and fly away before being asked to leave?

Though not as charming as Julie Andrews, Ashley Brown makes a brisk and substantial Mary Poppins, who mysteriously arrives at what's now a Victorian house - designed by the ever-amazing Bob Crowley as a perfect dollhouse with an attic nursery that descends to stage level when we need a closer look.

The name to remember, however, is Gavin Lee, the only holdover from the London original. As Bert, the genial chimney sweep, he manages a jaunty tap dance that takes him up the walls and upside-down on the ceiling. As repository of such lines as "Chim Chim Cher-ee," Lee treats such original songs, by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, as classics. The new songs, by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, are more than serviceable when introducing a nanny who's "Practically Perfect," but dip into the generic for the oft-repeated "Anything Can Happen" smile button.

Author Julian Fellowes (an Oscar winner for his "Gosford Park" screenplay) adds sinister wrinkles from Travers' other books to the cheerful movie plot. With Mackintosh as co-creator, he turns the marriage of George Banks (Daniel Jenkins) and Winifred (Rebecca Luker) into an identity-psychodrama worthy of our Oprah culture.

Can this marriage be saved? Luker sings, with customary understated likability, the frustrated pre-feminist lament, "I have a name which tells the world I'm someone else's wife." Jenkins plays a repressed workaholic with a midlife crisis and nostalgia for his own former nanny, who insisted on "Precision and Order." When the old woman comes to make order, she is an evil crone (Ruth Gottschall) who prefers "Brimstone and Treacle" to spoonfuls of sugar.

There is also a scene in which abused toys come to life to threaten Jane and Michael (Katherine Leigh Doherty and Matthew Gumley at the preview we attended) in one of the new songs: "Children who refuse to learn/will not return." But reports of this being too "Scary Poppins" for young sensibilities are overstated.

More problematic are scenes that wander off into weird fantasies. When Mary Poppins takes the children to the gray English park, sculptures comes to life in balletic reveries by choreographer Matthew Bourne (of all-male "Swan Lake" fame). One, named Neleus, is a marble-painted demigod in a fig leaf. The children learn that he is the son of the sea-god Poseidon, though we don't know why they care. We Googled Neleus and learned that, among other peculiar irrelevancies, he murdered his stepmother.

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is performed during a bizarre visit to the store of the "oldest woman on earth" and her lady friends, who all sound as if they came from Trinidad. Everyone spells out the letters of the word with their bodies, or at least that's what we think they are trying to do.

On the brighter side, Mary Poppins can talk to animals and pull home furnishings from her handbag. And, of course, she flies.

---------------------------------


Newsday Review

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:35pm

Variety is Positive:

"The partnership between producing powerhouses Disney and Cameron Mackintosh was bound to yield a mega-"Mary Poppins." With the behemoth shows that led the British invasion of Broadway in the 1980s, Mackintosh made "bigger is better" his manifesto. And Disney's ventures into musical theater can hardly be called modest in scale. So it's perhaps not surprising the lavish adaptation of P.L. Travers' beloved stories of a magical nanny is somewhat overstuffed. That quibble aside, the show is also bursting with dazzling stagecraft, stunning design, old-fashioned storytelling virtues and genuine charm.
Mackintosh and Disney have assembled an impressive creative pool that includes Richard Eyre, a director versed in classics and new works; choreographer and co-director Matthew Bourne, who has re-energized dance with his cinematically inspired ballets; screenwriter Julian Fellowes, whose work on "Gosford Park" made him an experienced navigator of bustling English households; and designer Bob Crowley, whose eye-popping sets eclectically reference Christopher Wren, Edward Gorey, Tim Burton and beyond.

________________________________________________________________


Bourne and co-choreographer Stephen Mear's athletic dance routines are at their liveliest in "Jolly Holiday" and the rambunctious rooftop tap number, "Step in Time," while "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is animated by fun semaphore spelling moves. "Spoonful of Sugar" is played for comedy, with the Banks' kitchen collapsing in chaos only to be reassembled with a flick of Mary's wrist. But it's the simpler staging that often captivates most, in the melancholy "Feed the Birds" or the joyous "Let's Go Fly a Kite."

________________________________________________________________


Principals and ensemble are solid all around, with Jenkins providing emotional ballast as George, whose sensitization is the story's central journey. But without detracting from the engaging Brown, the show's guiding spirit is Gavin Lee's Bert, the original London cast's sole carryover.

A lithe beanpole who handles dance duties with infectious ease, Lee saunters through the show on rubberized legs, wearing a grin that won't quit. He makes the expanded role of Bert as charmed, chipper and enigmatic a figure as Mary, threading together the action with occasional snatches of "Chim Chim Cher-ee." And his seeming authenticity helps erase the memory of Dick Van Dyke's bizarre Cockney accent in the film.

Mary's climactic ascent, soaring above the orchestra seats almost within arm's reach of the mezzanine and balcony before disappearing into the heavens, is a feat both simple and enthralling. But Bert almost steals the show in "Step in Time" as he taps his way up and around the entire proscenium arch. While there's no shortage of scenic wizardry on display here, it's a beguiling touch that this show's two most memorable, awe-inspiring effects have a human face."



http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932135.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:35pm

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 11:35 PM

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:41pm

Brantley is up.

He takes a sarcastic and derogatory tone on the overall show, and he's rather dismissive of Ashley Brown. He doesn't mention anything about Gavin Lee, and he says that both Jenkins and Luker are "excellent."

Overall, it is rather negative.

"She glides through the skies like an umbrella-powered stealth bomber, ever ready to dump her cargo of good advice on unsuspecting households. When she touches ground, on the stage of the New Amsterdam Theater, you can’t help noticing that while she looks like Joan Crawford trying to be nice, she sounds more like Dr. Phil.

Well, it took ’em long enough, didn’t it? I mean, it’s been two years since that reality series first appeared on the Fox network, the one in which stern British women shake up and shape up clueless parents with hopeless children. But it wasn’t until last night that “Nanny 911: The Musical” finally opened on Broadway.

Oops; my apologies. The correct title of the handsome, homily-packed and rather tedious show at the New Amsterdam is “Mary Poppins.” But I think my confusion is understandable. Though based on the classic fantasy book series by P. L. Travers and the 1964 Disney movie it inspired, this megamusical is ultimately less concerned with inexplicable magic than with practical psychology."

_______________________________________________________________

"This almost Puritanical suspicion of theatrical enchantment for its own sake keeps “Mary Poppins” from ever achieving the undiluted wonder of, say, the opening sequence of that most successful of Disney Broadway ventures, “The Lion King.” Even young children with great patience (is that an oxymoron?) may grow restless with the implicit lecturing between those moments when Mary flies, literally and figuratively. (The show runs a hefty 2 hours 45 minutes.)"

_____________________________________________________________

"If this sanitizing of the exotic in “Mary Poppins” makes it more digestible for young children, it also makes it less arresting for adults. When I saw it in London two years ago, “Mary Poppins” was a show divided between its shadowy id and its can-do super-ego, which set the prescriptions of self-help books to music.

In New York it is made clear that the heart of this show is not in the starry skies to which Mary ascends in the finale — or even among the rooftops where Mary’s B.F.F., Bert (Gavin Lee), works as a chimney sweep — but somewhere closer to the kitchen sink. "

______________________________________________________________

"But you can’t help being embarrassed for them when their characters’ problems are reduced to chipper mantras about self-empowerment and getting in touch with your feelings. Mr. Banks, it turns out, was himself the victim of a repressive harridan of a nanny, who makes a return in the form of a “Shockheaded Peter”-style gargoyle, played by Ruth Gottschall.
___________________________________________________________

"Could this “Mary Poppins” have been created for the English stage before the death of Diana, Princess of Wales — the event (as the current movie “The Queen” reminds us) that made it O.K. for Britons to emote in public? The show’s most significant progression isn’t about the children, but about Mr. Banks, who learns to stop recoiling when his wife tries to kiss him and to value quality time with the kids over making money.

As for the show’s title character, the poor thing doesn’t really have much of a personality other than that of an animated healing force. Ms. Brown introduces a few campy gestures to assure us that she has a sense of humor about all this, even if Mary doesn’t."

____________________________________________________________

"Even the fantasy numbers seem to exist principally for didactic purposes. That multicolored “Jolly Holiday” scene, in which discreetly naked statues come to life in a park, introduces a lonely little statue whose greatest wish (like Michael’s) is to reconnect with his father. “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” has the jaunty instructiveness of a “Sesame Street” spelling lesson.

The liveliest dancing comes in the “Step in Time” sequence, where chimney sweeps tap like troupers from “42nd Street” on the rooftops of London (a setting that allows the sage Bert to observe, “Troubles are never so bad when you can look at them from a little higher up”). But the show reserves another, newly created and numbingly inspirational song for its climax.

It’s called “Anything Can Happen,” and in it Mary achieves her apotheosis as an advice guru. As lamplighters swirl around her like Ice Capades dancers and star patterns of light fly over the audience, Ms. Brown’s Mary lets her eyes mist up and her smile turn sacred as she and Bert declaim, “Broaden your horizon/Open different doors/You may find a you there you never knew was yours.”

Well, I certainly hope so, Miss Poppins. But with all due respect, that heavy invisible volume on family counseling that you tote around with you makes it hard for any magical nanny to fly beyond familiar horizons."

[shira467]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:41pm

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/theater/reviews/17popp.html

NYTimes is up.

[spintoboy]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:44pm

A very positive writeup from Variety:

So it's perhaps not surprising the lavish adaptation of P.L. Travers' beloved stories of a magical nanny is somewhat overstuffed. That quibble aside, the show is also bursting with dazzling stagecraft, stunning design, old-fashioned storytelling virtues and genuine charm.
David Rooney in VARIETY

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 11:54pm

Mary’s B.F.F., Bert (Gavin Lee)

Mary's B.F.F?

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:02am

Ashley Brown's a washout and the show's a dud. Variety must be on the Disney dole.







P.L. Travers
On The Heavyside Layer
Updated On: 11/17/06 at 12:02 AM

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:03am

I'm in the minority who like Brantley, but did he really just use a piece of the teenage girl online vernacular in a major review? Has AIM really pervaded the culture to this level?

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:19am

Brantley used the term BFF mockingly and I actually found it rather funny. It's also funny that a couple of critics mentioned how irritating Ashley Brown's permanent smile is.
Looks like Gavin Lee is a lock for a Tony nomination in the Best Leading Actor in a Musical category.
Updated On: 11/17/06 at 12:19 AM

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:30am

whatever the context, it still strikes me as being "beneath" the writer and his influential position. I'm a fan of Brantley. I might not always agree with him, but I've always enjoyed his writing style and well-constructed justifications behind his opinion. this review is a bit more condescending than it needs to be, but for some reason "BFF" just seems unbefitting of high-level journalism. Could just be that I really dislike that stupid term.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:32am

Brown is "washed-up"? Is that possible? Can you be washed-up before you've had a chance to be washed in the first place?

And I doubt it matters. This show could get universal pans and it will still run on Broadway until the end of time.

[DAME]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:36am

WOW. that is one nasty pan from the NYT.

Posted: 11/17/06 at 12:47am

i thouhgt the "BFF" line was funny, both mocking the girls who will be flocking to the show, & the sexless relationship mary poppins has with burt.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:03am

John Simon is Mixed:

"For all the craft and craftiness that have gone into its making, the aggressively hyped and lavishly produced ``Mary Poppins' that has finally umbrellaed down to the New Amsterdam Theater in New York suffers from a surprising lack of charm. It has neither the droll toughness of the P.L. Travers books, nor the near-cloying but undeniable sweetness of the 1964 Disney movie. It dithers somewhere in between.

If you happen to be deaf, and can only see Bob Crowley's spectacular, hyperactive sets and painterly costumes, you may think you are witnessing a masterpiece.

If, conversely, you happen to be blind, and only hear the amiable old songs of the Sherman brothers (some of them with newfangled lyrics) and the rather lesser new ones by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, you may feel that your children are better served than you (unless the laboriously excogitated book of Julian Fellowes puts the kiddies off).

Should you, however, be in full possession of your adult senses, you'll be on a rollercoaster ride of sporadic highs followed by yawn-inducing lows. You'll end up wondering about the future of musicals and about the relationship between deep pockets and shallow art.

To be sure, even a negligible score, elucubrated book and eyebrow-raising choreography cannot totally undermine a show that has the following:

1. What seems like a cast of thousands or, at any rate, hundreds.

2. Direction by Richard Eyre with Energizer Bunny power, easily misperceivable as content.

3. A boy and girl who, though played by any of three pairs of children at different performances, exude the awesome professionalism of today's preternaturally precocious stage tots.

4. Such unimpeachable performances as Gavin Lee's Bert the Chimney Sweep, Daniel Jenkins as father Banks, and Rebecca Luker's mother Banks, irresistible even in an underwritten part.

Now what about the eponymous heroine as portrayed by newcomer Ashley Brown? She functions valiantly in all departments and is especially good at a gallant, though somewhat quixotic, impersonation of Julie Andrews, whose special charm is lacking. Brown is living proof that it is possible to do nothing wrong and still not rise above the sum of one's part."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a9bNzTxblgBA&refer=muse

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:03am

"Brown is "washed-up"? Is that possible? Can you be washed-up before you've had a chance to be washed in the first place?"

rentboy, before you get your cargo pants in a twist, you might do well to read my post carefully and quote me correctly.





Uncle Albert,
Near the Ceiling,
Wondering why those f*****s cut my number

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:06am

You are too cute!

Love ya bitch.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:11am

NY Sun is Negative:

"There's a brief chapter in P.L. Travers's first "Mary Poppins" book about John and Barbara Banks, the infant twins under the titular nanny's care. You won't find them in Disney's popular 1964 movie version or in the fatally bloated stage musical that reached these shores from London last night, but for one beguiling chapter, Travers depicted their point of view with devastating tenderness.

The twins converse easily with the sunlight and a mischievous starling, then sob uncontrollably upon learning that they'll lose this uncanny ability around their first birthday; a brief epilogue shows them in their newly uncommunicative state, which in turn reduces the starling to tears.

It's one of the saddest evocations of lost wonderment in all of children's literature. A similar lesson — albeit a much longer, louder, and more expensive one — can be found at the Hilton Theatre, where a talented team with an enormous special-effects budget has turned "Mary Poppins"into a flashy parade of joyless delights. Family musicals often aspire to re-create the feeling of being a kid again, but I don't think the arguably wiser, indisputably sadder John and Barbara are the kids director Richard Eyre had in mind."


http://www.nysun.com/article/43709

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:18am

that passage from the book about the starling *IS* beautiful & devastating....


"Annabel moved her hands inside the blanket.

'I am earth and air and fire and water,' she said softly. 'I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning.'

'Ah, such dark!' said the Starling softly, bending his head to his breast.

'It was dark in the egg, too!' the Fledgling cheeped.

'I come from the sea and its tides,' Annabel went on. 'I come from the sky and its stars; I come from the sun and its brightness --'

'Ah, so bright!' said the Starling, nodding.

'And I come from the forests of earth.'

As if in a dream, Mary Poppins rocked the cradle -- to-and-fro, to-and-fro with a steady swinging movement.

'Yes?' whispered the Fledgling.

'Slowly I moved at first,' said Annabel, 'always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been, and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream, I awoke and came swiftly.'

She paused for a moment, her blue eyes full of memories.

'And then?' prompted the Fledgling.

'I heard the stars singing as I came and I feld warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey.'

Annabel was silent.

The Fledgling stared at her with his bright inquisitive eyes.

Mary Poppins' hand lay quietly on the side of the cradle. She had stopped rocking.

'A long journey, indeed!' said the Starling softly, lifting his head from his breast. 'And, ah, so soon forgotten!'

Annabel stirred under the quilt.

'No!' she said confidently. 'I'll never forget.'

'Stuff and Nonsense! Beaks and Claws! Of course you will. By the time the week's out your won't remember a word of it -- what you are or where you came from!'

Inside her flannel petticoat Annabel was kicking furiously.

'I will! I will! How could I forget?'

'Because they all do!' jeered the Starling harshly. 'Every silly human, except' -- he nodded his head at Mary Poppins -- 'her!'"

-P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Comes Back, pp. 142-144.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:25am

Is BFF
worse than
Suzane Sommers's
Camel Toe
remark?
There reviews are
makin' my head
swirl
Does anyone actually finish reading
The New York Times Theatre Review?

I try but... than..

[AnythingCanHappen]

Posted: 11/17/06 at 1:52am

"I loved the show, and am not surprised about the derision...

I would love for it to appeal to everyone--and I'm a MAJOR cynic--but, not everyone really want's to have a good time in the theatre. Whatever flaws there are in the show, for me, were erased by the magic that made me feel like a kid again.

Childhood is not always happy. Mine was not always happy. Poppins took me away then and took me away again."

Thank you. And I don't even think one has to have a negative childhood... But if you can't just go to the theatre, and appreciate it for what it is - an escape from life/duty and a gorgeous show, then why bother going to theatre EVER? Seriously. What good do you get from picking it apart and bagging on people who are achieving what they want to do?

I will never understand. I had theatre RUINED for me last year in college. Seeing this show (which was my favorite in a weekend of 5 shows) fixed any awful experience I ever had. This show brought me to tears and just THINKING of it still does the same.

Updated On: 11/17/06 at 01:52 AM