Chim-che-che-WEE!

Only the best give Wednesdays off. And I shall take nothing else. – Mary Poppins

Shann and I saw Mary Poppins on Tuesday and had a load of fun. General impressions:

• The musical deviated quite a bit from the movie plotline of the story. The songs—all well sung—were strung together in a bit of a random fashion. They threw in Supercalifragilis(etc.), for instance, in a search for the “last word.” There was also a rather frightening scene where the toys in the nursery come alive. They pronounce the children guilty of a temper and punish them by throwing them around and generally terrorizing them.

• The set was quite elaborate, with whole floors of the house moving up and down the stage. The lighting, however, was a bit morbid, I thought. It’s not too much of a sunny set design. They used a lot of dark blues and dark greens.

• The family next to us was completely enraptured and oooh-ed and aah-ed all the way through. Especially at the end when Mary Poppin puts up her umbrella and flies over the crowd.

• This play made me think about a lot of things that I hadn’t when I first watched the Julie Andrews version as a child. Who is Bert, for instance? What is his relationship to Mary Poppins anyway? Why do they always have to say her first and last name? Could Poppins be her middle name? Is it sad to be Mary Poppins and have to fly around whenever the wind changes? Does she feel she has a life? Is Bert part of her real life? Is that something I really want to think about?

The best part of the musical definitely nurtured some of these new thoughts. And actually, I think the best part was an accident. It happened during the Supercalifragilis(etc.) number. The song is, in general, a very wholesome tune and has wholesome choreography to fit it. In an educational fashion, the cast spells out the word with their bodies in rapid fire. It’s fit for Mary Poppin’s character—a woman almost painfully prim and proper--there’s one woman who definitely does not have any form of scoliosis.

At the peak of the song, Bert makes a ring around Mary Poppins with his arms like a hula hoop, and she’s supposed to do a little sway. As the chorus swelled up, though, and the cast members surged on the vigor of their spelling, Mary Poppins got really into it, and instead of a neat little sway, she totally broke it down. Mary Poppins REMIX!!!! In a single move, Mary Poppins transformed herself from a proper nanny into a repressed Cabaret girl. Shann and I simultaneously burst out, “WHAT?!” and started laughing hysterically in our seats (good thing we were in the back of the orchestra floor).

I think we got a little window into Mary Poppins’s Wednesday nights off.

Oh horror!

Here are a few pictures outside of the theatre (note English spelling). In the first one, you’ll see some random girl’s arm, which swung into the photo at the last minute. In the second, you are supposed to see the Mary Poppins poster in the upper right hand corner, but somehow the guy totally missed it. Oh well.

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Oh, and here’s what happens when you accidentally cook beef in your Muslim flatmate’s pan…



Here is Shann, trying very hard to prevent the fire alarm from going off, since even shower steam is known to send the alarm blaring on a regular basis. In addition to boiling water in the pan under high heat, Shann and I felt so awful about it that we washed the pan twice, scrubbed it with baking soda, and then washed it again. To this day, every time my flatemate passes I think to myself, I defiled his pan!!!

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“Tomorrow we are going to Dublin!” announced Liz to our British friend last night. “Or, for those of you who have an accent, tomorrow we are going to D-oo-blin.”

“Is that how Americans say Dublin?” responded the British friend. “D-oo-blin? Doooblin? Luke, listen to how the Americans say Dublin! Dooblin!”

Yes, today, I am going to Dooblin.

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Two last minute orders of business:

1. Johnny is watching Basil, my basil plant, for me!

2. I just brushed my teeth with shaving cream. To be explained when I return.