May 20, 2018
For most of its mainstream production life onstage, My Fair Lady has honored the original staging by Moss Hart, or some variation thereof. And while lyricist-librettist Alan Jay Lerner was alive, it was even contractual that every major revival use the original set design by Oliver Smith. He saw what worked (perhaps was also dismayed at a post-original-Broadway production somewhere that didn't) and mandated that no one meddle with the recipe. Based on the first Broadway revival, which was a modest success—the 25th Anniversary production, in which Jerry Adler, who had stage managed the original, replicated the Hart production—and the first production after Lerner died—a horrendous stylistic misfire directed by Howard Davies—you'd have thought that Lerner absolutely had a point. Which he did, to this extent: if a director doesn't have an affinity for musical theatre in his bones and additionally the sensibility to connect with this material's tone and intention, he (or she) shouldn't go anywhere near it.
Enter Bartlett Sher.
Sher's musical theatre signature has been putting musicals from the pre-1970 classic era through "the big rethink"—approaching them as plays about fully dimensional human beings first (re-examining behavior, connection, subtext, nuance, emotional octane) and as musicals second. With no shortage of style or musical-craft savvy, but letting humanism lead the way, always. And every time he has done this, it has been a rousing success and a grand revelation.
Until now.
Which is not to say that now is anything close to a failure. Merely that the success, which is considerable, doesn't rouse; and that revelation doesn't play much of a part.
Not that he doesn't give it the full, sincere Bartlett Sher treatment. He has narrowed what has often (but not necessarily) been the age gap between Henry Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton) and Eliza Doolittle (Lauren Ambrose) to stress and explore the real potential for romantic tension; he has encouraged performances that have a certain extra-dimensional heft, leaving no line or lyric unexamined toward a fuller context than we used to know; he has shed a brighter spotlight on what it means to be a woman going through the transformation Eliza goes through, and her chauvinistic treatment at the hands of Higgins throughout (tacitly making it more relevant to the contemporary world); and he has allowed Higgins's dogmatism to reflect not just male obstinance, but something of a pathology. Etcetera.
But here's the thing.
That's pretty much always been there anyway. There isn't that much room for stretching it. For giving it a certain amount of enhanced juice, yes. For making sure even the most passing chorister has a rounded personality, yes. For supervising it to look fantastic and move enchantingly, yes again. And none of that is minor.
But a new My Fair Lady itself? Not so much.
With the exception of one thing.
Like many people (myself not among them), Mr. Sher seems to think that Shaw's original ending has it right; that Eliza and Higgins don't reunite at the end. And throughout the musical, his direction tries to ever-more-gradually tip the balance such that when he gets to that final moment, his new twist feels inevitable and right.
I will not spoil for you how he does it. Prior to seeing the show, I avoided all descriptions of it myself. I knew only that there was no change of spoken text involved. I thought sure I could predict how Sher would approach it…but no, he fooled me; and surprised me. All I'll tell you is that he has managed the neat trick of achieving a kind of resolution that doesn't leave Higgins utterly bereft or the audience frustrated.
But what price glory? wonder I. As I say, Lerner's libretto appropriates all the socio-political points from Shaw's original, implicitly and explicitly. And where Lerner (and by extension Loewe) truly earns the ending of Eliza's return, that Lerner appropriated from Anthony Asquith's 1938 film of the straight play, which arguably didn't quite earn it (despite audiences finding it emotionally gratifying)…is that he gives Higgins the song "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face." That's Higgins's moment of truth and transformation. Even if all Higgins can say upon Ms. Doolittle's return is, "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?" we know at that point he is no longer able to fool himself, or her. He can never go back to what he was.
Is it socio-political truth? Perhaps not.
Is it
psychologically healthy truth in real life? Not often.
But it's absolutely musical theatre truth. Eliza can absolutely penetrate the pathological defenses of an intellectual narcissist and transform him as he has transformed her. Because in the musical, Henry Higgins isn't really a textbook narcissist. Nor truly the misogynist he claims to be. He's just a guy who thinks too damned much of himself and has never met his opposite-sex match, because he always thought if she came at all, it wouldn't be in the guise of a Cockney flower girl. In real life, Scrooges don't transform either. But not one version of A Christmas Carol denies that he can.
All this said, we've still got a mighty impressive My Fair Lady. I'm a bit on the fence about Ms. Ambrose's Eliza (I'm always aware of her trying to press the emotional nuance she's worked on into the edge of her vocal technique, which is sufficient enough for the notes, but not, in that high range, to support the detail work), but Mr. Hadden-Paton's Higgins is good enough to be legendary. As Eliza's wastrel dad Alfie, Norbert Leo Butz seems to be having at least as much fun as the audience. And in the non-singing role of the Professor's mother, Mrs. Higgins…well, how do you cast Diana Rigg and not have her make an extraordinary impression? Musical direction, choreography, production and lighting design, all, as well, top notch.
But the compulsion to make that final moment reflect the world we live in now, when that work is already done before you get there…well…that's a flower shop on top of a flower shop…
Go to David Spencer's Profile
Return to Home Page