Mary Poppins

Though based on the classic fantasy book series by P. L. Travers and the 1964 Disney movie it inspired, this megamusical is ultimately less concerned with inexplicable magic than with practical psychology. True, the title character (played by the fierce-smiling Ashley Brown) still works the sort of sorcery that only high-end Broadway budgets allow: she flies; she slides up banisters; she makes cuddly toys turn as menacing as Chucky; and whenever Bob Crowley’s spectacular Edwardian set threatens to fall apart, she restores order to chaos with a wave of her gloved hands. But be warned. In this high-pedigree show — produced by the Disney company and Cameron Mackintosh and staged by the eminent British director Richard Eyre and the wunder-choreographer Matthew Bourne — every act of sorcery comes with a fortune-cookie life lesson attached. The operating philosophy, it would seem, is that a spoonful of spectacle helps the medicine go down. — Ben Brantley

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