Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- For all the craft and craftiness that have gone into its making, the aggressively hyped and lavishly produced ``Mary Poppins'' that has finally umbrellaed down to the New Amsterdam Theater in New York suffers from a surprising lack of charm. It has neither the droll toughness of the P.L. Travers books, nor the near-cloying but undeniable sweetness of the 1964 Disney movie. It dithers somewhere in between.

If you happen to be deaf, and can only see Bob Crowley's spectacular, hyperactive sets and painterly costumes, you may think you are witnessing a masterpiece.

If, conversely, you happen to be blind, and only hear the amiable old songs of the Sherman brothers (some of them with newfangled lyrics) and the rather lesser new ones by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, you may feel that your children are better served than you (unless the laboriously excogitated book of Julian Fellowes puts the kiddies off).

Should you, however, be in full possession of your adult senses, you'll be on a rollercoaster ride of sporadic highs followed by yawn-inducing lows. You'll end up wondering about the future of musicals and about the relationship between deep pockets and shallow art.

Ingredients

To be sure, even a negligible score, elucubrated book and eyebrow-raising choreography cannot totally undermine a show that has the following:

1. What seems like a cast of thousands or, at any rate, hundreds.

2. Direction by Richard Eyre with Energizer Bunny power, easily misperceivable as content.

3. A boy and girl who, though played by any of three pairs of children at different performances, exude the awesome professionalism of today's preternaturally precocious stage tots.

4. Such unimpeachable performances as Gavin Lee's Bert the Chimney Sweep, Daniel Jenkins as father Banks, and Rebecca Luker's mother Banks, irresistible even in an underwritten part.

Now what about the eponymous heroine as portrayed by newcomer Ashley Brown? She functions valiantly in all departments and is especially good at a gallant, though somewhat quixotic, impersonation of Julie Andrews, whose special charm is lacking. Brown is living proof that it is possible to do nothing wrong and still not rise above the sum of one's part.

The minor roles are also well taken, notably Mrs. Brill, the cook, by Jane Carr, and the terrifying nanny that stunted the childhood of George Banks, Miss Andrew, as acidly etched by Ruth Gottschall.

Nude Park Statues

There are also obvious setbacks. Matthew Bourne, the co- director and choreographer, is a specialist in gender-bending ballets such as an all-male ``Swan Lake.'' He has come up with an irrelevant ballet for seemingly nude park statues, headed by an ephebic, barely fig-leafed Neleus, who would be more at home in the musicalization of a drag show.

Still, this inappropriate number is partly redeemed by a second-act rooftop ballet for chimney sweeps that ranks, along with the orchestrations of William David Brohn, among the show's highlights.

The rather mixed-up nature of the musical may be due to the shotgun wedding of the savvy independent producer Cameron Mackintosh (``Les Miserables,'' ``Miss Saigon'') and Thomas Schumacher, representing the Disney empire (``The Lion King,'' ``Tarzan''). The former was doubtless aiming for a certain wryness, whereas the latter surely demanded Disneyfied family entertainment or die.

But there are those sets. Crowley gives us a worm's eye view of a bank interior that looks hilariously like a cross between a temple of Mammon and the Pantheon of Paris. Again, he provides -- prodigally for just one short scene -- the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, with columns as majestically towering as those of the real thing, if not indeed more so.

(John Simon is the New York theater critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story: John Simon at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: November 17, 2006 00:07 EST