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Just a "children's story"?

What a joy: the stories of childhood. They are filled with the discovery of the world’s wonder and mystery. These stories allow us to experience being a child again as we encounter the magical and the dangerous parts of growing up. 

Throughout the process of working on Mary Poppins, the actors and I have focused on both of these aspects of the story. Jane and Michael love discovering the magic in the world with Mary Poppins as their guide, but the stakes are not all fun and games for the members of the Banks family. Their chance to be happy and even to survive as a family hangs in the balance. Mary has not come simply to entertain the children but to save the family. She tries to help the children and the adults to find magic around them and in each other, every day.   

There is a line in this musical which does not appear in the classic Disney film. When asked how long she will stay with the Banks family, Mary Poppins says, “I will stay till the chain breaks.” During much of the early work on this show, I found this an odd and cryptic reference. 

I understood that the line refers to the locket with a broken chain that Mary Poppins gives to Jane, but this seemed a very peculiar way for her to explain how long she would remain with the Banks family. Then I realized that the “chain” in question is not the one on the locket but rather the “chain” of unhappiness that has been a legacy handed down from George Banks’ father to George. And George is now in the process of handing this same unhappy, small and unmagical view of the world on to his own children. This is what Mary Poppins has come to change--the “chain” she has come to break. 

What an unexpectedly profound idea to find at the heart of a “children’s story.” But, of course, it is high stakes issues like these that make stories appeal to us when we are young and bring us back to these wonderful stories when we are older. 

So now, the stakes are high for the family. Mary Poppins is magical. But will her magic be enough?

What do you think is going to happen? Let's watch this wonderful “children’s(?) story" together, and find out.

Enjoy,

Mark Abram-Copenhaver

Director of Mary Poppins

Artistic Director, South Bend Civic Theatre