Theater review: This worthwhile ‘Mary Poppins,’ at Good Company Players, finds a tone a few shades darker than Julie Andrews
By Doug Hoagland
All is not cheery on Cherry Tree Lane in Good Company Players’ current production of “Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical.” By design, this iteration of the magical nanny’s domestic adventures reclaims a bit of the darker tone found in the original Mary Poppins books by author P.L. Travers.
For example, Mary Poppins brings to life the dolls of naughty Jane and Michael Banks. The dolls (actors colorfully costumed by GCP’s Ginger Kay Lewis-Reed) want to teach the children a lesson about caring for their possessions. When Jane and Michael resist, Mary Poppins abandons her young charges, taking the dolls with her.
No worries, she returns to the Banks’ home on Cherry Tree Lane after the children run away when her replacement turns out to be the hell-on-wheels nursemaid who raised (traumatized) their father when he was a boy.
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But Mary Poppins’ act of tough love with the dolls seems a nod to the literary Mary Poppins, who is vain, grumpy, and sometimes mean in a world of eccentric characters, cynicism and occasionally dark atmosphere. Movie versions sanitized those elements and left a Julie Andrews hologram imprinted on audiences’ memories.
Julian Fellowes – famous for creating “Downtown Abbey” – wrote the book for the 2004 “Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical” that ran for more than 2,600 performances in New York.
At Roger Rocka’s Music Hall, Emily Pessano plays the title role, and hers is a performance with an edge. Not jarring, but enough to notice. It requires nuance to make this Mary Poppins unconventional without violating convention, matter-of-fact without brusqueness, wise without arrogance. Pessano makes her Mary Poppins spitspot efficient, if not exactly endearing.
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She conveys an emotional distance from Jane and Michael – she is their nanny, not their big sister – and her movement on stage conveys a businesslike briskness. This Mary Poppins is on a mission to help a chaotic household, and even if her methods can seem downright mean (e.g. whisking away the children’s toys), you believe in her sincerity because she is, after all, Mary Poppins. It helps that Pessano has good comedic timing in scenes that call for laughs.
Bert, a Cockney chimney sweep, fills the role of narrator building a bridge between scenes. Shawn Williams ably conveys the happy-go-lucky contentment of a working man who knows his value. A commanding dancer, Williams leads a rousing tapped presentation of “Step In Time,” one of the better known songs from Disney’s “Mary Poppins” (1964). A cadre of non-tapping chimney sweeps dances into the audience during the number, and unfortunately, no spotlights followed them at the performance I attended.
Lighting Designer Brandi Martin has chosen an overall darker palette, in keeping with some of this production’s more somber moments: for example, the poignant encounter of Mary Poppins and the children with the Bird Woman (Camille Gason, in fine voice, as usual), who’s selling bags of breadcrumbs for a tuppence. Sometimes, however, her lighting choices feel too murky.
“Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical” combines the songs of brothers Richard and Robert Sherman from the Disney film with new songs, lyrics and additional music by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe.
The Shermans’ marvelous “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” gets its proper due, led by Mrs. Corry, owner of the “Talking Shop” where people buy words, conversations, and gingerbread. She’s gifted with leading a super-charged performance of the song, and Haleigh Cook fills the role with a larger-than-life persona. Her beautiful voice anchors the signature song with gusto.
Directors Dan Pessano and Jessica Sarkisian cast strong performers in a number of other supporting roles.
Winifred Banks, played by Carly Oliver, is an Edwardian wife bending to her autocratic husband George (a stern Terry Lewis, who tackled the role at the performance I saw; it’s usually played by Lex Martin). But then she finds an agency, suggesting she’s soaked up some of Mary Poppins’ brio. Oliver portrays Winifred with emotional vulnerability, and her sparkling soprano – colored with warmth and tenderness – provides a counterpoint to the show’s sharper edges.
The Banks children – preadolescent Jane and younger Michael – struggle for their father’s affection while grappling with their immaturity. Daniella Sarkisian and Eliot Quin Karle Bonetto share the role of Jane. I saw Daniella. Roman Alvarado goes solo with Michael. Daniella and Roman offer natural, unforced portrayals.
Robertson Ay (played by Bradley Tharpe) is the good natured but bumbling houseboy in the Banks’ employ, and his kitchen scene with things in disarray is a comedic dream come true. Tharpe acquits himself well in the required physicality.
Mrs. Brill is the Banks’ over-extended cook, and Kaitlin Marsh lent her a sense of exasperated authority in just the right measure. Marsh was basically an understudy to an ill understudy; she quickly learned the role in a few days and found out only 75 minutes before curtain time that she was going on. Ellie Campbell usually plays the part.
Finally, there is the aforementioned hell on wheels: Miss Andrews. Wearing shoulder pads and filling them with the aggressiveness of a defensive tackle in the NFL, she swoops in to trigger Mr. Banks’ terrible memories of childhood and to scare his children witless. Amy Aller’s broad portrayal is high energy, and she hits her high note with piercing clarity.
The set for “Mary Poppins” is minimal: two beds and a toy box in the children’s room and a settee in the drawing room. The starkness on stage fit this production’s more blunt take on Mary Poppins, but it left me wanting more. Projected images fill out the drawing room with additional furniture and also create a London park. The images are projected onto two screens, and the movement of actors caused one screen to waver during the performance I saw. That created an undulating – and distracting – effect.
The Banks’ kitchen is the most filled out, though also minimal. It has a work table, wall shelves and a hutch loaded with tableware. Set Designer David Pierce works his magic so Mary Poppins, without lifting a finger, can set things in order after a mishap.
All in all, the GCP production of “Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical” offers a more authentic take on the title character without pushing too far the boundaries of audience expectations. At the same time, the show provides sufficient familiarity as the best known movie tunes transfer to the stage. It’s a good show worth seeing.
