I'm starting out June better than I started May...with a journal entry!

We had a very theatrical weekend in Chicago, seeing Mary Poppins on Saturday and Jersey Boys on Sunday. Both were excellent! Very different types of shows, but both very engaging.

First was Mary Poppins. I've not read the Travers book, but I do know a bit about her disappointment with the Walt Disney version of her work. She didn't like the animation in the film, she didn't like some of the character depictions, she didn't like the casting of Dick Van Dyke as Bert. Yet, in the end, Walt got his way (pretty much) and made the picture the way he wanted to, and knew it would work.

And in my estimation, the movie is a classic. It has a timeless quality to it that you often find in classics. And it has the usual charming songs that you expect from the Sherman Brothers. Still, Ms. Travers reportedly hated it and continued to hate it even after it was a huge hit, and even as she reaped the benefits of royalties from the film over the many years.

So when they decided to bring it to the stage, Disney wisely brought in Cameron Mackintosh, who was partly responsible for Les Mis, and reworked the story into something apparently more faithful to the mood and story originally told by Travers. (I need to read that book.) It was important to use the songs, but to sort of reframe them, and in this they were quite successful.

It's a darker, more emotional tale than that told by Disney in film version. It's deeper, exploring Mr. Banks' problems and the burden he's carried with him since his own childhood. It makes the relationship not just between father and children, but between man and wife and between the whole family much more front and center to the story. It adds some colorful scenes, and some new songs, and even a very scary character in Nanny Andrew.

I actually think this version would make a very good film itself, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Disney remake it some day, as has been done (with good financial results) with so many other films over the past decade or so.

I'll be looking to go see it again.

Since this entry got a little long, I'll talk about Jersey Boys in its own entry, either Wednesday or Thursday.