Joan Marcus
"Mary Poppins" dolls out the tasty medicine at the Ahmanson from November 13th, 2009 through February 7th, 2010
We're not going to type the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious just for the sake of typing supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
It's long and tires the fingers.
But, here to pep us up, is "Mary Poppins" at the Ahmanson. This is truly the week of the holiday spectacular bowing in Los Angeles, what with "Disney's A Christmas Carol" and its stage show opening at the El Capitan last week, the Grinch at Pantages growling in on the 10th, and now, the world's #1 nanny. The show's in town from November 13th through February 7th.
We're mad, out of our tree mad, for Mary Poppins. We like the prim-sweet P.L. Travers tale, and, probably like you, our devotion to the Disney-made, Julie Andrews-starrer of 1964 is as wide as a racetrack filled with galloping cartoon characters. We say "probably like you" because at the recent D23 Expo in Anaheim, the original Mary Poppins costume had quite the crowd around it at all times.
After all, how many children's tales have such an well-defined adult character at their center, and such heartrending and, at times, doleful, themes of family and togetherness? Still, it is a fizzy, uplifting story in the end, mischievous and twinkly, and there's a reason "Chim Chim Cheree" won the Oscar for Best Song in its day. Because it is dusted with a fine soot of aural enchantment.
Can we also add that the film, so very British in so many minds, was made in Burbank? When Mary flies back into Los Angeles, it is a homecoming of sorts.
Now look smart, and mouth closed, Poppins fans. We are not a codfish.
