Mary Poppins: anything can happen. If you let it
11 Nov 2018

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann and Ali Sultani

Once upon a time, as a child I saw the movie version of Mary Popspins and was enchanted. I saw it several times, played the soundtrack relentlessly on my close and play record player, and was very proud to be able to recite/sing "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and occasionally manage it backwards. At a more jaded age I attended a theatrical re-release and wound up staying through three screenings in a row. More recently, Saving Mr Banks inspired me to watch the film yet again. And there was a deliciously dark production of the Broadway version at the LOT.

Multiple viewings invoked multiple reactions but which always entertained. Which is a longwinded way of stating that I'm not sure how to approach the Young People's Theatre production of Mary Poppins. Entertaining is a brief way of expressing how brisk and buoyant it is, zipping along in 90 minutes that feel like half that. But is it fair to compare it to the source material which is now part of most of our DNA? I'm going to say not, simply because the source material of the film was, in the opinion of the author PL Travers herself, bastardized and butchered by Disney.

Classics are always open, almost eager for, re-interpretation and exploration. Even musicals are not immune with changing mores, musical styles and politics influencing how characters sing, present and are received. Director Thom Allison (Killjoys, Elegies), no slouch of a performer himself with his role in Outrageous being one of the most extraordinary I have ever seen, charts a middle route through the material. The constraints of this production being explicitly recommended for "ages 5 & up," means that the subversive elements of the text - the evils of capitalism and class systems, emotional abuse, toxic masculinity, etc - must be layered in as subtext rather than foregrounded.

So the tale of a cheerful dominatrix of a nanny who teaches a father how to live, loses some of its intriguing sub-plots - feminism, drug addiction, sex work, etc - in favour of the main through line. And it works. Mr Banks' transformation is a bit expedient and is accomplished by one of Ms Poppins' supernatural interventions, but it still packs an emotional wallop. (Which makes it odd that the insipid "Anything Can Happen" has replaced the, pun intended, soaring "Let's Go Fly a Kite" as a finale) And Allison and a powerhouse of a cast are not all flash and swagger, though strut, sing and dance their hearts out they do.

The clever set is a Victorian cuckoo clock with doors that open and close with tight precision. It is within that haunted rigidity and stuffiness that Mary Poppins arrives to create a fever dream. Not all of the effects are seamless but when they work there is magic afoot. And when they don't quite work, they make theatrical sense, a tug on the suspension of disbelief and a satisfying cerebral caress. All of the characters except Mary Poppins, Bert and the children do multiple duty adding to the dreamlike quality.

The chimney sweeps lurk around the various tiers of the set and are unobtrusively efficient at making lightning quick set changes. Bert becomes less a foil and more of a narrator, which is a shame as Kyle Blair has a loose-limbed lilt to his dancing and an engaging smile that charms. When Mary Poppins cockteases him with, "You'd never think of pressing your advantage/Forbearance is the hallmark of your creed/A lady needn't fear when you are near/Your sweet gentility is crystal clear," we feel his pain. And why wouldn't we? Vanessa Sears (The Wizard of Oz) is captivating, an ice queen who can melt glaciers with the passion in her voice, a tight-lipped superior smirk belied by twinkling eyes.

Adding to the classical framing is the choice for the voices to be more operatic than pop theatrical. It is refreshing to hear Jewelle Blackman (Andy Warhol Musical: In Rehearsal, Once on This Island) fill the air with crystal clear flawless tones that somehow ache with emotion. It makes Mrs Banks's journey plausible instead of a plot device, she slices off her corset with notes that cut like knives or soften into a maternal or erotic embrace. Shane Carty is a gruff ol' bear of a Mr Banks but also reappears as a camp baker and a Queen Victoria statue come to life. The symbolism may be confusing - though the drag element delighted a tyke a row ahead of us - but Carty's crack comic timing, mobile face and rich baritone never miss a beat.

Starr Domingue rips into the flashiest and most colourful role. Her Mrs Corry, wielding a fractured French accent to emphasize her distance from the straitlaced British life of the Banks, presides over a bakery that is a riot of colour, sight gags and the best dry self-referential moment of the production when Mary Poppins chooses a cookie that is an "X." Domingue takes full advantage and fully earns the camp couture costume reveal that almost stops the show.

There is vaudevillian level slapstick from Kyle Golemba (A Christmas Carol) as a big blissfully brain-dead hunk of a manservant, and Hailey Lewis (Grease) has the comic gusto to make Michael Banks endearing instead of annoying. The dance acrobatics go to Jak Barradell as Neleus as does the quick change Ludlam award. But everyone, except for Sears, is upstaged by the swirling cape and magnificent malevolence of Sarah Lynn Strange's Miss Andrew. After her brief tour de force "Brimstone and Treacle," she deserved a more melodramatic and memorable death scene when, having been poisoned by Mary Poppins, she exits stage left.

A lot of care and resources have been lavished on this production and it is a crowd pleaser. Even the Stomp-lite fused with tap "Step In Time" that never quite achieved lift off, can't help but impress just by sheer force of energy and numbers of fleet feet. The promo touts this Mary Poppins as "The Broadway Musical" and Young People's Theatre does appear to want to dazzle. But where a Broadway musical - more accurately a wannabe Broadway musical - often pummels the audience into submission with effects, emotional modulations, bombast, and showstopping melisma or held notes, this Mary Poppins aims for the heart, the hopeful centre, of the story.

Constrained by the necessity of a speedy narrative and the post-Sherman brothers' songs that aren't as memorable, the fairy tale qualities come to the fore to patch up any niggling doubts or confusion. When Mary Poppins makes her second entrance, in a clever bit of sleight of hand that makes up for her budget and insurance induced inability to fly, tears of joy and wonder filled my eyes. Her retort, also the finale number title, "Anything can happen. If you let it," was made viscerally true. The cast sings in the finale, "If you reach for the stars all you get are the stars/But we've found a whole new spin/If you reach for the heavens you get the stars thrown in." We may still have left singing "Let's go fly a kite." But it was a kite that was definitely among the stars and close to heaven.