CDs: Disney's New Musicals
P.L. Travers' series of eight books about an English nanny who could fly commenced in 1934. Just a few years later, Walt Disney's daughter fell in love with the books, and Disney became interested in obtaining the film rights to the series. But it took Disney until 1961 to come to terms with the demanding Travers.
Winning Oscars for leading lady Julie Andrews and the Sherman Brothers' song "Chim Chim Cheree," the resulting 1964 film was an enormous hit. Where Travers' stories took place in the present, that is the 1930s, the film shifted the action back to Edwardian England. Its huge success notwithstanding, Travers was reportedly dissatisfied with various aspects of the film, although she apparently approved of Andrews.
In the mid-'40s, as part of a series of writing assignments outlined for him by Oscar Hammerstein II, Stephen Sondheim attempted to write a musical version of the Mary Poppins stories, but nothing ever came of it. In 1993, when Travers was 93, producer Cameron Mackintosh met with Travers and outlined his intention of presenting a stage version of Mary Poppins that would combine elements of the film with elements from the original stories.
Mackintosh won the stage rights to the property, but while Travers envisioned a show with a wholly new score, Mackintosh felt that it had to include most of the beloved film songs. Of course, those Sherman Brothers songs were controlled by Disney, so the stage Poppins became a co-production between Disney and Mackintosh, the latter also billed as "co-creator" of the stage version. With a book by Julian Fellowes the Gosford Park screenplay, the show would veer substantially from the film, bringing in additional elements from Travers and more fully developing the notion of Mary Poppins as a force that brings a family back to life.
The new script would require new songs, and Mackintosh felt that they needed to be the work of new songwriters, rather than the Shermans. The Shermans had done the new musical material for the 2002 London stage version of their Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a film that was in several respects inspired by Mary Poppins. To write the new Mary Poppins songs, Mackintosh hired George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, a team with which the producer had done several projects, including Just So. Stiles and Drewe also wrote Honk!, a musical that had won an Olivier Award over Disney's The Lion King.
As it turned out, Stiles and Drew not only wrote several major new numbers for the stage Poppins but also revised and added new sections to many of the old songs. At the same time, several of the original Sherman Brothers songs were dropped, including "Stay Awake," "I Love to Laugh," and "Sister Suffragette."
Like the original Follies or the Roundabout Cabaret, the London stage production of Mary Poppins is co-directed by an experienced stager and a choreographer, in this case Richard Eyre, former artistic director of the Royal National Theatre, and Matthew Bourne, who has also choreographed the show with Stephen Mear.
With elaborate sets by master designer Bob Crowley, Mary Poppins opened at the Prince Edward Theatre last December to strong reviews and instantly became a major hit with a sizable future. The first Sherman Brothers film score to make it to the stage, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, opens on Broadway this spring. Plans call for Mary Poppins to follow it to Broadway next year.
Meanwhile, one can enjoy the newly-released London cast recording, which is a pleasure. Of the full-scale new items, there are two standouts: Mary Poppins' spritely introductory number, "Practically Perfect," and the near-closing, Mary-led ensemble, the catchy "Anything Can Happen." Also effective are the recurring family number "Cherry Tree Lane"; the mother's pensive "Being Mrs. Banks"; "Temper, Temper," when the nursery toys come to life to admonish Jane and Michael; and "Brimstone and Treacle," for the father's formidable old nanny who temporarily replaces Mary.
The new material is strong enough to make one almost wish that the entire score were new. But then the decision to retain the venerable Sherman Brothers' numbers "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Supercalifragilisticexpialodocious," "Feed the Birds," "Step in Time," "Jolly Holliday," "Chim Chim Cheree," "Let's Go Fly a Kite" was inevitable, as they would surely be missed were they not present.
The good news is that, with the help of Stiles and Drewe, the old songs have been reinvented in all sorts of pleasing ways. And the new material blends seamlessly with the old, with William David Brohn's handsome, full-bodied orchestrations helping to unify the score.
As Mary, Olivier Award-winner Laura Michelle Kelly provides a blend of soprano and belt that's clear, effortless, and delightful. Gavin Lee sounds like an ideally chipper Bert. One wouldn't be surprised to see both of these performers brought over for the New York Poppins. Kelly recently appeared on Broadway, as Hodel in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof. It's good to hear Carrie star Linzi Hateley as Mrs. Banks, and David Haig's troubled Mr. Banks is outstanding. Rosemary Ashe "Brimstone and Treacle" and Julia Sutton "Feed the Birds" also contribute nicely.
Like any big musical, Mary Poppins loses something on disc; one can't see Lee's Bert tap-dancing upside down on the proscenium arch of the Prince Edward, or Kelly's Mary bid farewell by flying up to the theatre's ceiling. But the Poppins CD indicates that the transition from screen to stage has been handled with taste and spirit.
ON THE RECORD Walt Disney Records
Three songs from Mary Poppins are briefly heard in Disney's other new stage musical of 2004, On the Record. Following the stage version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame that had a long run in Berlin, On the Record looks to be the second major, full-length Disney stage musical that's not destined to play New York. On the road since last fall, On the Record is scheduled to conclude its tour in July. But Disney recently preserved the production by issuing a two-disc, 105-minute cast album.
Directed, choreographed, and co-conceived by Robert Longbottom Side Show, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Flower Drum Song, On the Record is a revue made up of more than sixty songs from seventy-five years of Disney productions, including films, TV programs, and stage and theme-park shows. Orchestrated by Danny Troob and arranged by David Chase, the material ranges from a song from a 1930 animated short to one from the 2004 feature Home on the Range.
With a cast of eight, the show is set in a recording studio, and the songs are divided into fifteen "sessions," which may take the form of thematic medleys songs about love, songs about flight or may be organized around specific properties medleys from Dumbo and The Little Mermaid. The first act concludes with a session devoted to silly-word songs "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah". One second-act session is devoted to the various foreign-language lyrics for "Be Our Guest."
But in addition to the setting, On the Record has a suggested narrative Chad Beguelin is billed as "scenarist". Backed by a quartet of supporting singers, the show introduces two couples, one a pair of young, potential lovers, the other older and with a history. There's ingenue Kristen Ashley Brown, young pop singer Nick Andrew Samonsky, diva Diane Kaitlin Hopkins, and fading matinee idol Julian Brian Sutherland.
With virtually no dialogue included, the recording, made in New York in January, supplies only the vaguest sense of this narrative framework. Nor do we get to hear from actor Richard Easton, who is heard in the production as the pre-recorded voice of a studio engineer.
So the recording doesn't really amount to much more than an attractive collection of songs. Needless to say, the material is good, so On the Record is consistently pleasant, if also on the bland side. The standout performer is newcomer Brown, who has just the right vocal mix for a wide range of Disney heroines. Brown joins Hopkins for potent duets of "I'm Wishing" and "He's a Tramp." On her own, Hopkins scores with Dumbo's "Baby Mine" and "Will the Sun Ever Shine Again?," from Home on the Range. While the recording is billed as "original cast," Hopkins was a replacement for Emily Skinner, who opened the tour as Diane. Backed by ten musicians, the versatile back-up quartet includes two of off-Broadway's current Altar Boyz, Andy Karl and Tyler Maynard, along with Meredith Inglesby and Keewa Nurullah.
If On the Record is enjoyable but unremarkable, the recording is probably a necessary addition to one's collection of Disney theatre recordings. The German Hunchback CD remains my favorite of the batch.