Mary Poppins

        Last Tuesday we went to the Arizona Broadway Theatre to see Mary Poppins. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, and after the first fifteen minutes I still wasn’t sure. Gut then—BANG!—it took off and became one of my all-time favorite musicals. I’ve always been more interested in the set design, staging, and choreography than, except for the really great musicals, the songs or story. Mary Poppins nearly popped my eyes out with set designs and special effects. The music and vocals not so much. The songs were long and in a sort of Cockney accent that made what they were singing almost impossible to understand. And some, especially Mary Poppins (Renee Kathleen Koher), were so shrill I wanted to clap hands over my ears. But the sets, special effects, and choreography were—well, if I were given only one word to describe them it would be— "scrumdidlyiciouslygloriosamarveloponousfantasmicalicious." (Hey, if Mary can make up a word, so can I.)

          First, the sets. The show opened with a full-stage scrim painted as a prosperous London street with attractive row homes. Then the back lights come up to show us a living room with four people, two adults and two children. Up with the scrim and the story begins. An argument ensues about the bad behavior of the children and the departure of the latest nanny. Later, after the children are sent to bed, the living room divides and moves off stage left and right to reveal the upstairs bedroom. Other sets included a kitchen, a park, the house rooftop with assorted chimneys, a curio shop, and a bank made up of nine moveable teller cages. Let’s see. With the opening scrim, there were a total of eight different sets.

          Second, the special effects. After Mary arrives at the Bank household, she takes her valise up to the bedroom and places it on a toy box and then proceeds to take out a five-foot hat rack, then moves the valise to a small hutch and removes a large green potted plant. Both items are far too large to fit into the small valise. How did they do that? I guess there was a false bottom in the valise and a false top to the toy box and hutch that gave access behind the set. Later, in a kitchen scene, the young steward shows us his clumsiness when he stumbles into a rack of hanging pots and pans, knocking them sideways, banging into a shelf of dishes that tip dangerously, then crashes into the kitchen table and breaks it in half. He weeps inconsolably when he sees what he’d done. But Mary, with a finger snap fixes everything, pots and pans back up on the rack, dishes untipped, and even the table somehow magically repaired. How did they do that? Other effects involve Mary and Bert flying overhead and a kite that soars above the stage. Okay, I know how they did that but it was still remarkable for a limited-budget theater to pull it all off.

          Third, the choreography. Two numbers were spectacular—the spelling out of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” using hand and arm gestures as the company dances, and the chimney sweeps on the rooftop doing a frenetic tap sequence to “Step in Time.” Both numbers had the audience on its feet applauding. I can remember in the first few seasons at ABT when the choreography was pretty amateurish. Not any longer. These performers were nearly up to Broadway standards.

          If you’re a West Valley Arizonan, you should try to see this show. It would Mary Pop your eyes out, just as it did to me.