By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Waterville Playhouse’s “Mary Poppins Jr.” offers a romp through the classic P.L. Travers story that’s heavy on the songs without stinting the moral of the story.
The show, officially titled “Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s Mary Poppins Jr.” runs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Maumee Indoor Theatre. Tickets are available at www.watervilleplayshop.org.
Bert (Ben Bascuk) serves as the audience guide, arriving on stage, to sing the prologue to set up the plot. He pops in and out to amiably guide us and the characters along.
As he sets the scene, Jane (Addison Zinz) and Michael (Keira Dawson) are on a rampage. Their latest nanny (Mackenzie Slagle) is storming out of the house.
While the uptight father George Banks (Lucas Patterson) wants a new nanny like the one he had, who’d whip, maybe literally, the children into shape, the children have their own ideas as spelled out in “The Perfect Nanny.” George tears up that wishlist of a help wanted ad and throws into the fire. As Michael and Jane’s hopes go up in smoke, Mary Poppins (Maggie Titus) pops in, umbrella and all.
This being scaled-down production flying is not in the budget, but the cast, more than 50 including a large chorus, certainly work at delivering a high-spirited performance.
As with last summer’s “Alice in Wonderland,” this production, directed by Shauna Newbold with musical direction by Connie Matlow, opts to use recorded tracks instead of live musicians. I’m not a fan of using tracks, but given there’s hardly a minute or two where the music’s not playing, I can understand why they made that choice. The full orchestral sound does give the show a more cinematic feel.
The songs are delightful as ever, whether the bouncy “A Spoonful of Sugar,” the comically haughty “Practically Perfect,” the wistful “Feed the Birds,” and the simply silly “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocous.”
Between the dance numbers choreographed by Amanda Nye and the songs, the script gets squeezed to its bare necessities. Sometimes it feels as much like a recital as theater, but that’s all the better to give a lot of eager young performers a chance in the spotlight.
Maggie Titus makes the most of her turn in the starring role. She’s just a bit stern, and mostly cheerful, as she shows her young charges the world and instructs them with tidy turns of phrase.
Her appearance not only changes them, but brings out the best in the rest of the family. Winifred Banks (Abigail Fitch) finds the gumption in the end to assert herself to the betterment of her family and the heightened esteem of her husband.
George Banks shows his good heart early on, which almost costs him his job. Mary Poppins helps him rediscover that side of him. She’s assisted in this by the arrival of George’s old nanny Miss Andrew (Kailey Snyder), who proves every bit the terror he remembers, though not so fondly when face-to-face with her.
The help, Mrs. Brill (Keira Dawson) and houseboy Robertson Aye (Tyler Thompson), do their comic best to keep the Banks household from operating smoothly.
The same cannot be said of the performance. It moves briskly without seeming rushed, and in the end proves to be as sweet as a spoonful of sugar.
