‘Poppins’ practically perfect

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September 17, 2015 - 12:00 AM

If Wednesday’s dress rehearsal is any indication, the Iola Community Theatre is prepared to deliver one of the finest productions in years.
ICT’s staging of “Mary Poppins” benefits not only from a rich cast of actors, dancers, and singers, but from professional-grade stagecraft, including a rigging system that hoists the umbrella-gripping nanny up into the rafters when stage direction requires her to take flight.
“Mary Poppins” debuts Friday night at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. Tickets are on sale at Sophisticated Rose or at the Center’s doors before performances.
The familiar musical tells the story of an enchanting nanny who enters the stiff Edwardian-era household of Mr. and Mrs. Banks and their two children after the sudden departure of the family’s previous governess.
Sabra Aguirre brings her impeccable voice to the title role, and is flawless as the unflappable nanny. Jim Stukey, with his mobile face and pitch-perfect Cockney drawl, casts a comic charm across the two-act show in his role as Bert, the big-hearted part-time chimney sweep. It’s worth the cost of a ticket ($15 for adults, $8 for kids) for their performances alone.
And Everett Glaze and Cali Riley, who are on the stage a majority of the night, are unfairly good as the two Banks children, Jane and Michael.
The emotional arc of the musical depends on Mr. Banks’ transformation from a humorless, distant, career-minded head of household into — after Poppins knocks the scales from his eyes — a tender and loving father.
Jim Gilpin, a sunny bank president in real life, plays the dour banker in “Mary Poppins.” Gilpin manages Mr. Banks’ awakening with ease, accumulating a couple of moving solos along the way. Mrs. Banks is played by Kristina Palmer, whose crystalline voice is one of the highlights of the show.
Susan Raines is memorable as the terrifying replacement nanny — the anti-Poppins, Miss Andrew. Andrew ladles cod liver oil down the gullets of her charges, where earlier in the show Poppins, famously, provided a spoonful of something nicer. Raines stalks the stage, snapping orders at the kids, flashing her teeth and casting wild-eyed stares at anyone who crosses her path.
The musical face-off between the two nannies, the infernal Miss Andrew and the cool Mary Poppins is another highlight.
Raines, as the Bird Lady, also performs an affecting version of “Feed the Birds.”
Even the night’s one malfunction seemed suffused with the charm that characterized the rest of the show: During a number near the end, while a line of chimney sweeps pranced at the front of the stage, the flying wires, meant to lift Bert into the air, snagged, winching the chimney sweep about four feet off the stage and tipping the actor upside down. Stuckey dangled this way for a few long seconds — whimpering, still in a Cockey accent if that’s possible, “Ooh, ooh. Uh-oh” — before sliding out of his pants and onto the stage floor.
The moment, though, belonged to Aguirre, who, without a tremor of worry, sidled over to the helpless Stuckey as he struggled to untangle his trousers from around his shins. Still in song, Poppins opened her umbrella, using it as a screen, so that the chimney sweep, with the aid of a couple of stagehands who rushed in from the wings, could wriggle back into his clothes and stick the song’s final chorus.
The show’s musical director is Jan Knewtson, its choreographer is Chelsea Lea, and its director — who, in ICT’s 50th anniversary year, has pulled off a coup with this production — is Richard Spencer.
The show will run at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

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