Mary Poppins on Broadway Reviews

Film musicals don't normally translate well into stage versions - think "Singing in the Rain" - but "Mary Poppins" doesn't simply translate, it transcends. This is a great show that, for first time this season, has Broadway singing again.

Nobody does magical entertainment like Disney - except Cameron Mackintosh. The two have teamed up for the musical "Mary Poppins," which opened last night on Broadway and won't be going anywhere for a long time. It is a roof-raising, toe-tapping, high-flying extravaganza.

Musical theatre lovers who like their leading characters emotionally aloof and commitment-phobic can now enjoy a worthy companion piece to the upcoming revival of Company. Mary Poppins has flown into town in a ravishing production that kicks all that sentimental nonsense about familial closeness into the wings and pushes the heartwarming thrills of good ol' fashioned music hall song and dance fun downstage center. Don't go expecting to see a stage version of the movie, but by all means do go.

Watching "Mary Poppins," the Disney-Cameron Mackintosh extravaganza now on view at the New Amsterdam Theatre, is a little like eating an entire box of expensive chocolates — all by yourself. You may end up feeling a bit overstuffed, but, boy, the experience will be fun. Tasty, too. This lavish stage version about the world's most blissfully competent nanny is an amalgamation of the 1964 Disney movie that made Julie Andrews a film star and the classic children's books by P.L. Travers.

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.

Forget the affable super-nanny of Disney's 1964 movie musical, Mary Poppins. As reconceived by director Richard Eyre (Iris) and codirector Matthew Bourne (the dance genius behind 1998's très gay Swan Lake), Mary (Ashley Brown) becomes a smug therapist to the cranky, morose Banks family. Lessons abound, including a creepy scene where little Jane and Michael are put on trial by their toys. Imported from London, this adaptation teeters between saccharine and tart in what feels like a creative tug-of-war. 'I'm practically perfect,' Mary trills. More like oddly schizophrenic.

Could it be that the multinational partnership of Disney-Mackintosh Inc. has smothered "Mary Poppins" under a blanket of cash? I like how'd-they-do-that stage trickery as much as the next wide-eyed theatergoer, but there's something unsatisfyingly slick about the fantastic spectacle that Mr. Mackintosh and his British colleagues have shipped across the Atlantic. The 1964 film of "Mary Poppins" was more than a little bit sticky around the edges, but it had heart, and it also had Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and a brilliant supporting cast that included Hermione Baddeley, Jane Darwell, Glynis Johns, Elsa Lanchester and Ed Wynn. This "Mary Poppins" has the best special effects that money can buy. I'd rather have heart.

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.

Mary Poppins” as a study of an unhappy family in need of healing comes more from the Disney movie, which starred Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, than from the Travers stories. But the script by Julian Fellowes (of the film “Gosford Park”) and the new songs suffer from squeezing the complexities of domestic dysfunction into the rhythms of a singalong children’s wonderland. Mr. Jenkins and Ms. Luker are excellent as the troubled spouses and give the show a much-needed emotional center.

The biggest surprise of Mary Poppins—I can’t believe I’m typing this—is that Disney has tried too hard to make a serious musical. The stage version delves more deeply than the film into the domestic troubles of the Banks home. This being a Disney story, you know from the start that Dad’s job anxiety and Mom’s life frustrations are just setting you up for a huggy Spielbergian finale. But what are the maniac toys from Shockheaded Peter doing marauding around the nursery, menacing little Michael and Jane? Since when does anybody care about what goes on at Dad’s looming, vaguely Masonic bank?