“There’s the chimney units and the park units, there’s a bank, a cathedral, a nursery, every single room you could think of, and it all miraculously fits in that tiny backstage somewhere,” said IU student Elaine Cotter, who plays Mary Poppins. “It’s magical.”
The show opens at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Dec. 19 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Subsequent performances will take place at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Dec. 20, 23, 26 and 27 and Jan. 1 and 2.
Reid Henderson, a New York-based actor who plays Bert, said the intricate set design by David Higgins makes the stage look like a storybook.
The set pieces, the cast of more than 40 actors and the technicality of the production all contribute to making “Mary Poppins” an impressively complex show to put on, Cotter said.
“When you think of really big shows, you don’t necessarily think of ‘Mary Poppins’ as a huge musical theater production,” Cotter said. “You think of ‘Wicked’ and ‘The Lion King,’ these massive shows, but I honestly think that ‘Mary Poppins’ is on that caliber. What makes it exciting is that the story is larger than life.”
Henderson said an interesting element to the story is the simple question: What is Mary Poppins? Cotter suggested she could be an angel or a witch who retains human qualities. Throughout the course of the show, this question is never truly resolved.
“Mary is this presence that is always around and can kind of sense when something is awry, and she shows up to fix it,” Henderson said.
Comparing Mary Poppins to Krampus, the anti-Santa Claus, Henderson said both figures know when families do not have the right spirit, and they come to teach a lesson.
Cotter said Mary’s role in the show contributes to the overarching themes of family, love and morality.
“Mary has this ability to oversee and bring everyone together, and Bert is her accomplice in that the whole time,” Cotter said. “They both leave at the end and leave the family perfect.”
The musical retains most of the elements of the movie, but with a few extra twists and turns, Cotter said. A few new songs were written specifically for the musical adaptation, but the standards including “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” remain.
Henderson said the familiarity of the songs and the story will have even those who are not usually fans of musical theater tapping their feet.
“I think it’s one of those shows that makes you always feel like a kid,” Henderson said. “It brings those feelings to whoever’s watching it.”
