‘MY FAIR LADY’: Lauren Ambrose. Photo: Joan Marcus

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MY FAIR LADY
Music by Frederick Loewe
Book & Lyrics by Alan Lerner
Based on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Choreography by Christopher Gattelli
Directed by Barltett Sher
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
150 West 65th Street
(212-239-6200), www.LCT.org

 

By David NouNou

Revivals are becoming more of a thorny subject, especially when it comes to classic musical masterpieces of yesteryear. There is the purist/traditionalist vs. the revisionist standpoint. I’d like to think of myself somewhere in the middle. Let’s consider the big musical revivals of this year: Michael Arden took Once On This Island, a bittersweet musical, and reimagined it as an eternal love story. Jack O’Brien took a gloriously scored bittersweet musical and reimagined it into a dark, dreary love story. Bartlett Sher took a sumptuous recognizable classic—one of the three greatest musicals of all time, My Fair Lady, with the most sublime of scores—and turned it into a show for the #MeToo movement era.

To begin with, the Lerner and Loewe score is still sublime, this production is about as sumptuous as you will ever get; the sets by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Catherine Zuber and lighting by Donald Holder are all visually stunning. However, there is a clear shift here that contradicts what the creators originally conceived. If you recall the original poster from 1956 (Google it), it has George Bernard Shaw as a puppeteer pulling the strings of Rex Harrison/Henry Higgins who, in turn, is controlling the strings of Julie Andrews/Eliza Doolittle. It is one of the greatest theatrical posters of all time, which I proudly display in my living room. It seems that, in this version, it is Eliza Doolittle who is controlling the strings on Henry Higgins.

Here is the thorny side: My Fair Lady is set in Victorian times and it is all about class distinction. The #MeToo movement hasn’t been conceived yet. A poor cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Lauren Ambrose) meets Professor Henry Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton), a linguistics professor and an old friend of his Colonel Pickering (Allan Corduner) accidentally outside of Covent Garden. Eliza comes to Higgins’ home the next day to take diction lessons to be a proper genteel lady in a flower shop. Higgins and Pickering take Eliza on as a wager to see if Higgins can turn this simple “heartless guttersnipe” and transform her into a glorious lady in six months so she could be presented at the embassy ball as a lady of high station.

Along the way is Eliza’s father, a poor, common, drunken cockney dustman, Alfred Doolittle (Norbert Leo Butz) who has no morals or scruples to sell his daughter for five pounds so he can drink with his buddies. There is also Mrs. Higgins (Dame Diana Rigg who unfortunately was out at our performance due to illness) as an upper class, high-minded elitist.

As conceived, it was clear in which direction this musical was going: Higgins is the professor and Eliza is the pupil. Eliza eventually blossoms into a titan and gives Henry his comeuppance. In this version, Bartlett Sher has shifted the dynamics from the first moment after the overture ends. Eliza walks solely across an empty stage until she comes front and center to her flower basket as the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden set starts rolling into place. The upper class are filing out of the Opera House to get cabs to take home and the commoners are trying to sell their wares and keep warm by an open stove. You don’t even know that Henry Higgins is on the stage.

The dynamics also play a large part in casting. Starting with Eliza, Lauren Ambrose is an unexpected miracle. Last weekend, a cable TV channel was showing the 1997 comedy In and Out in which Ms. Ambrose had a small part as a teenager. Having seen this movie umpteen times, I was watching it recently because of Ms. Ambrose. I was curious to see how the teenager back then was going to transform 21 years later into Eliza Doolittle on Broadway. Who knew she could sing so beautifully? She starts out rocky as the cockney flower girl but transforms into a magnificent butterfly gradually and methodically. Her rendition of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” is charming but her “I Could Have Danced All Night” is breathtaking. By the end, she is a lady for the ages.

In contrast, Harry Hadden-Paton as Henry Higgins never quite registers. Unknown to American audiences, he must have been chosen only to make Eliza be more dynamic. I wasn’t expecting the bombast of Rex Harrison, but I was expecting a connection between him and Eliza or him with Pickering. Unfortunately for Mr. Hadden-Paton, the stage at the Vivian Beaumont is so cavernous, even with brilliant songs like “Why Can’t the English,” “I’m An Ordinary Man” and the haunting “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” barely gets the needle moving on the Richter scale. He gets no help from Allan Corduner’s bland Colonel Pickering, either.

Norbert Leo Butz, a two-time Tony winner, has two show-stopping numbers: “With A Little Bit of Luck” and “Get Me to the Church on Time.” Mr. Butz is poised to win his third Tony. However, his Alfred Doolittle is more Broadway shtick than a cockney dustman. Also, curious and jarring in the number, why did Mr. Sher feel there was a need for a chorus of drags to take Alfred to the church?

Although casting and directorial choices are an issue here, all I’ll say is what the hell was the character of Zoltan Karpathy doing here as well as the drags? However, thanks to Lauren Ambrose and the outstanding design team, this is still a glorious revival. You’ll go in humming the tunes to yourself, and you’ll come out actually singing the lyrics.

 

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 12, 2018
Reviewed at May 10, 2018 performance.

 

‘MY FAIR LADY’: Lauren Ambrose & Harry Hadden-Paton. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘MY FAIR LADY’: Lauren Ambrose & Diana Rigg. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘MY FAIR LADY’: Norbert Leo Butz. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘MY FAIR LADY’: Jordan Donica. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘MY FAIR LADY’: Harry Hadden-Paton. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘MY FAIR LADY’: Norbert Leo Butz & company. Photo: Joan Marcus