So... who is Mary Poppins?

The first Mary Poppins book — there would eventually be seven — appeared in 1934. It was a hit for P. L. Travers, an author born in Australia in 1899 who had settled in London. A prolific poet and journalist, Travers’ real name was Pamela Lyndon Travers, but she was born as Helen Lyndon Goff. She had a brief career as a Shakespearean actress. And by all accounts she had a tough childhood.

Some scholars speculate that the captivating character of Mary Poppins represents Travers wishing she’d had a more whimsical and caring upbringing. Some say that the character actually is her — and indeed, Travers herself was a rather no-nonsense sort of person. 

“What is Mary Poppins? is a very grownup question,” says Karl Kenzler, who played George Banks, the family father, in the Broadway and touring production of the show that launched in 2006. “As grownups we go, ‘Well, what is she?’ — and if you would ask kids they would say, ‘She’s exactly what she is — she’s Mary Poppins!’”

The show’s producer, the legendary Cameron Mackintosh, is willing to attempt an answer. “Mary stands for someone you can believe in,” he says. “All the things she says about life are things that, whatever your age, you can respond to now.”

Others who created the stage show tried to answer the question, too, in this short Disney feature:

The story goes that Walt Disney’s daughters were so fascinated by the fictional nanny that he promised to make a movie for them. During World War II, Travers lived in New York City, working for the British Ministry of Information, and Disney first contacted her then. He’d just had a hit with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, after all. But it took many more years of contact before Travers would agree.

The main character in Travers’ books is not quite the same as the one indelibly created by Julie Andrews in the award-winning 1964 film. The nanny in the books is even more mysterious, and sometimes stern. Travers was not pleased — though she, like many millions of others, understood the movie’s skill and charm. Hear Dick Van Dyke and others talk about how the film came to be:

The question remains: Who is this magical nanny, employed by the Banks family in their home on Cherry Tree Lane?

“I can hear P. L. Travers tut-tutting before I even speak,” says Brian Sibley, an English writer and historian. “She would never answer that question.”

“I think she’s like an angel,” says Anthony Lyn, director of the touring production. “Shes an embodiment of something that is outside our day to day comprehension.” 

Bring your family to Lyric on April 10 and 11 and see what you think. Surely we can find one word that describes her — perhaps her most famous word of all, that you can enjoy in this delightful Disney Sing-Along treat!