The NEIU Independent

Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: broadwayworld.com

"Mary Poppins," which is running through June at the Cadillac Palace downtown, is a glorious feast for the eyes, featuring amazing sets, fantastic dancing, stellar singing and some of the most outrageous stunts I've seen this side of the circus.

I was anxiously anticipating the play because I loved the suffrage angle represented in the film, and I was hoping for some riveting discussion with my own young Girl Scout (she and her 9-year-old brother accompanied me) regarding women's right to vote on the way home. Outside of the theater, I met a young man from DuSable High School who was raising money to buy the basketball team new jerseys. Theatergoers brushed past him gruffly, ignoring his pleas to assist a worthy cause.

One of the most endearing parts of this play is when Mary Poppins opens the eyes of her young charges to the humanity of the "bird lady" (remember Joseph Zeman, Lincoln Square's dearly departed pigeon man?) who sells birdseed. Instead of ignoring her, they learn to respect her. I wish I could have seen the theater-goers treat the young man from DuSable with the same dignity--they certainly could use the lesson.

Julian Fellowes, the playwright responsible for the script of the current version of "Mary Poppins" at the Cadillac Theater, has totally eradicated any mention of the suffrage movement. Instead, Jane Banks is portrayed as a washed-up has-been of an actress, who, while missing her theater life, tells her husband with resignation; "I wasn't very good at it anyway." I was terribly disappointed in this decision that took the real fight for women out of the play, and replaced it with this insipid, vapid version of Jane Banks. Instead, the story focuses more on the father of the Banks children, George Banks, whose childhood "Holy Terror," Mrs. Andrews, is revisited upon his children during one of Mary Poppins' inexplicable "sudden disappearances" (or "popping out" as she charmingly refers to it).

I'd call it abandonment: abandonment of sense when the true story lacks the backbone it had in regards to the suffrage movement. If you have a sudden urge to spend $50 for a balcony seat to see Mary Poppins, rent or buy the movie and send the difference to DuSable High School, whose basketball team needs new jerseys. That is a better investment of resources for the community.

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