Like its famous source material, San Francisco Playhouse’s stage musical “Mary Poppins” is full of magic. Admirers of the stories by P. L. Travers and, perh
Like its famous source material, San Francisco Playhouse’s stage musical “Mary Poppins” is full of magic.
Admirers of the stories by P. L. Travers and, perhaps even more fans of the beloved 1964 movie with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, will be charmed by this local presentation of the 2004 hit show (it went to Broadway in 2006) with an impressive pedigree.
Produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, it’s got Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman’s best classic songs from the film (although in a different order, with different setups) and some almost as good new music by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. And the book is by Julian Fellowes of “Downton Abbey” fame.
The show looks fantastic, from the opening with narrator/jack of all trades Bert (versatile Wiley Naman Strasser) serenading on a rooftop, playing an accordion, warning about dark clouds gathering at the home of the upper-class Banks family, to the close, after the group has been touched by nanny Mary Poppins’ (appropriately enigmatic yet sassy El Beh) enchanting powers.
A smashing production team of several dozen led by Maggie Koch, Angela Knutson, Zach Sigman, Tish Leung and Mike “Miguel” Martinez is behind plentiful amazing effects, quite up to Disney standards: Mary Poppins pulls a seemingly endless stream of items out of her carpet bag (in a new tune “Practically Perfect”); a kitchen mess is instantly tidied (in “A Spoonful of Sugar”); black birds flap their wings (in “Feed the Birds); city folk engage in a fun leisure activity (in “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”) and, of course, the umbrella-wielding title character flies.
