I have only slight memory of the Mary Poppins movie from my childhood - and no wonder, as I see that I must have been only 4 or 5 when I saw it (unless it had some return run when I was older?) My vague memory of it was that it was a tad melancholy in some of the songs and themes (Feed the Birds, in particular), and I wasn't exactly a sucker for fantasy as a kid, although a few years later I did enjoy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang quite a lot. (It was the techno excitement of a long distance trip in an open flying car that did it, I'm sure.)
So, I've never given the movie much thought as an adult, until now.
The reason - my wife got relatively cheap tickets to the stage version currently showing at QPAC in Brisbane. It's been playing around Australia for much of 2022.
My impression of the stage show (since confirmed on my reading this morning) was that it must have drawn more heavily on the book(s) than did the movie, as I was pretty sure there were features in it that didn't appear in the film at all. And it got me thinking about the peculiarity of the whole concept, and why it didn't grab me as a child. I think (rationalising with nearly 60 years of hindsight!) that I didn't like the lack of an origin story, or even origin hints, as to the magical title character.
The stage show, on the other hand, with its repeated featuring of Greek classical park statues come to life, and the kids being interested in Greek gods' relationships, gives a greater sense of the story having strong mythological undertones. I'm still a bit puzzled as to the nature of the relationship between Bert and her, though: I mean, if it followed Greek mythology too closely, there would probably be some weird carnal episode between them on every visit. But instead we get the notion that she appears to him out of the blue when she wants a bit of chaste fun, with a sort of hint of some important role she plays in maintaining his unusual cheerfulness over the years. A kind of a muse, perhaps? Maybe it is further explained in the books, but I am not that keen to look it up.
Anyway, I was thinking along these lines when I Googled up this morning a few articles about the author, PJ Travers. Yes, I already knew a little bit about how she was born in Queensland, had a cantankerous relationship with Disney and the studio, and didn't like the film. But I've never bothered watching Saving Mr Banks: my interest was not that high.
I am pleased to see from this 2018 article, though, that my guesses about the author's intentions and interest in mythology were spot on. This was written by a guy who met her, although in which decade seems unclear - he says she was in her 50's, but she was born in 1899, making that the 1950's. The context of the article suggests it was after the movie was made, hence the 1970's. Doesn't much matter:
I first met Pamela Travers 10 years later when she was in her 50s. This
was shortly after she had been a visiting writer at Radcliffe and Smith
colleges, but before she had taken up the great passion of her later
life — composing meditative essays for Parabola, a magazine “devoted to
the exploration of the quest for meaning as it is expressed in the
world’s myths, symbols, and religious traditions, with particular
emphasis on the relationship between this store of wisdom and our modern
life.” That mission statement also amounts to a description of
Travers’s life.
Travers was the wisest woman I’ve ever met. She was the second Western
woman to study Zen in Kyoto, part of the inner circle of the famous
mystic G.I. Gurdjieff and did yoga daily (an exotic practice in the
1970s). One afternoon in her Manhattan apartment, we had a conversation
that would later appear in Paris Review. She spoke about the meanings of
Humpty Dumpty, how her book “Friend Monkey” had been inspired by the
Hindu myth of Hanuman, the Zen expression “summoned not created,” the
sacredness of names in aboriginal cultures and a spiritual understanding
of the parable of the Prodigal Son. And as for linking “this store of
wisdom and our modern life,” she led me step by step through parallels
between the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and the myth of Persephone. It
was one of the richest afternoons of my life.
As
she often did, Travers emphasized that she “never wrote for children”
but remained “immensely grateful that children have included my books in
their treasure trove.” She thought her books appealed to the young
because she had never forgotten her own childhood: “I can, as it were,
turn aside and consult it.”
Of
Irish descent, Travers grew up in the Australian Outback and moved as a
young woman to England in 1924 to pursue her dream of being a
journalist and poet. By great good luck, she was taken in and encouraged
by leading figures of the Celtic Twilight, including William Butler
Yeats.
Then, further down, this explanation:
But what is most important is that Mary Poppins comes from the world of
myth, where she is a magnificent and significant figure. In the world of
myth, she is the Great Goddess, but comically reincarnated as a nanny
who “pops in” to turn-of-the-century London. In the Disney version, her
mystic and mythic story becomes music-hall song-and-dance. As Travers
said in a letter to writer Brian Sibley, “It is as though they took a
sausage, threw away the contents but kept the skin, and filled the skin
with their own ideas, very far from the original substance.”
Take,
for instance, the heart of the movie, where the children step into a
sidewalk drawing and join Mary and Bert in a make-believe world, ride on
a merry-go-round and hear the song
“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” The heart of the book, on the
other hand, is a scene where Jane and Michael Banks go with Mary to the
zoo — on the one night of the year when all of the animals dance
together — and a wise snake tells the children about the unity of all
life. That chapter reads like one of the animal fables from the ancient
Indian epic “The Panchatantra,” set in a modern era.
Almost makes me want to check out the books, after all!
As for the stage show: regardless of what you think of the story, or some of the music, it's one of those productions where the staging and enthusiasm of the cast make it pretty much impossible to dislike. (The massive changing sets are nearly worth a ticket alone.) I also thought it unusual, for a stage musical, in that I think most shows end the first half on a production number high, but this one doesn't. The second half really does "wow" the audience more, in my opinion. The climax (I don't think I am giving anything away) featuring a high wire ascent back into the heavens over the audience is just, well, theatrically thrilling - and really makes you wonder how on earth the performers get used to doing it without being nervous wrecks.
As for who of my handful of regular readers might be interested in a post like this: Tim Train, I at least expect a comment from you!
%20_%20Twitter.png)