Last night, I went out with my family to see the Mary Poppins musical at the Ahmanson Theatre. We had terrible traffic getting there, but somehow managed to be on time regardless. Got super-high seats up in the balcony, but that's okay, too. I hadn't heard much about Mary Poppins, but I have seen the Broadway versions of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, and loved them both to death. ("Endless Night" is still one of my fav TLK songs ever.) And Mary Poppins was another movie from my childhood that I watched constantly, so this was bound to be just as good, right?


...Yeah, except for the part where the Broadway version was sometimes more like this than it was Mary Poppins. Seriously what.

Now overall I guess it was good...it's a Disney Broadway show so of course the production values were very high. The sets were gorgeous, the effects were awesome, the actors were great with singing and speaking alike, and most of the songs were fun. (Probably the best song being "Step in Time," but that's the best song in the movie, too).

But then there were just some things story-wise that were like wait what why is this happening. They changed a bunch from the movie, whereas with stuff like BATB and TLK they kept the basic story and just expanded on the characters with extra songs. But with this, they changed up some character motivations and made some stuff really creepy. Like, instead of them jumping into a chalk drawing and riding the carousel horses and being served by adorable tuxedo penguins, these creepy nude statues come to life and just sort of waltz all over the place. They looked cool, but damn, I'll take animated penguin waiters over a butt-naked dancing faun statue any day.

And there was this...this song near intermission where it suddenly goes from Jane and Michael being put to bed into NIGHTMARE FUEL. Jane has been abusing her toys or something and so Mary brings them to life and these giant toys, like a doll with its arm half torn off and a monkey with cymbals or whatever just start doing the creepiest dance ever and Jane and Michael are all OMFG TERROR

And I seriously just started turning to my brothers and we were all sharing these "WTF?!!?!" looks because really, WTF, Mary Poppins

And then no one EVER SPEAKS OF IT AGAIN. It was pretty much the Broadway version of a BIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT.

Of course they still weren't done with the terror, because in the second act Mary Poppins leaves for a little while, so they call in George Banks' old nanny Mrs. Andrews, who is pretty much all HELLO I ASPIRE TO BE UMBRIDGE. And Mary Poppins comes in and defeats her by force-feeding her her own horrible castor oil, she gets passed out and put in some giant birdcage and then sent to hell?!?! IDEK, it was weird.

This isn't even mentioning the fact that most all of the characters just weren't...that...likeable. Like, in the Mary Poppins movie, the children are rambunctious but sweet, Mr. Banks is severely misguided and stingy but not malicious, and Mrs. Banks is happily preoccupied with her own goals while still fawning over her husband. I don't know if it was the writing, the directing or both, but in the play the kids were often shrill and bratty, and Mr. Banks was domineering, bitter and sometimes disturbingly sexist. They cut out Mrs. Banks' involvement with womens' rights and instead made her mousey and submissive pretty much until the end of the play when she grew a spine. Everyone got a little better by the end of the play, but pretty much the only likeable characters throughout the whole thing was Bert. D:

Also, they cut the song "I Love To Laugh," which is one of my favorite songs from the movie. :( And INSTEAD they put in some creepy song about mistreated toys coming to life and tormenting children I don't even

SO. Yeah. I'm not sure how to feel about this play. Again, everything was gorgeous to watch because of the beautiful sets, effects and costumes. And I suppose the characters all turned out all right by the end, because Disney Broadway production. But there were just a bunch of moments where I'm staring at my family and we're all going "WHY THE HELL IS THIS HAPPENING." Is all this stuff in the original book instead of the movie, maybe? Like how the original Sleeping Beauty is actually really disturbing when the Disney movie is just sweet? Perhaps I'll never know. But the fact of the matter is, adorable penguins in bow ties >>>>>>>>>>>> creepy living toys missing limbs.

Ah well, it was fun to do something together as a family regardless, if for no other reason than we ended up laughing ourselves sick with stories of the substitute teachers at my high school and how they were all batshit crazy.


OH, and 'cause it's Tuesday, there's a new Lunargyros page today. Expect more Dissidia tonight, although I really had to get some art-related stuff done before I go playing again.

Drawing: Many things!

Writing: Finished some stuff