Review: This version of ‘My Fair Lady’ infuses loverly classic with modern updates
Director Bartlett Sher regularly reimagines classic musicals he was too young to see on Broadway. He so radically rethought “South Pacific” and “The King and I,” which came through Charlotte on memorable Broadway Lights tours, that anyone attending “My Fair Lady” must have wondered what he’d do to update this Lerner and Loewe classic.
He’s made Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle equals — not only near the end of the story, when her traditional submission makes any fair-minded person queasy, but throughout. She shows spirit the moment they meet in Covent Garden: When she thinks he’s a detective spying on her, she springs at him so vigorously that he scuttles out of reach.
Sher toys with the sexual dynamics writer Alan Jay Lerner inherited from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion.” Higgins and Col. Pickering touch each other frequently; odious ex-pupil Zoltan Karpathy flirts with Higgins at the embassy ball; dustman Alfred Doolittle sings “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” to a bar half-filled with drag queens — in 1912? — and Higgins seems to propose a sexless, maybe loveless, marriage of minds to Eliza when he asks her to live with him. (Shaw told his future wife, “Don’t fall in love: Be your own, not mine or anyone else’s ... From the moment that you can’t do without me, you’re lost.” How Higgins-esque!)
Most crucially, Sher depicts a nearly unbridgeable gulf between classes in a society where success depends on the right accent as much as the right connections. Freddy, Eliza’s would-be suitor, can’t hold a job, but he’s thought to be “better” than flower girls and streetsweepers who do. Eliza’s like an Untouchable at the bottom of India’s caste system; before she cleans up, Freddy’s mother recoils from possible contact, and Higgins unconsciously wipes down the sofa where Eliza sat and throws a handkerchief he lent her in a trash can.
Underneath all the layers of philosophy, of course, we find the same beloved songs and witty lines, executed sweetly and sharply. Sher sends actors through doors as they sing and speak, often on a complex revolving set that allows for quick changes. (That complexity may have caused a problem Tuesday night at Ovens Auditorium, when unexplained “technical difficulties” created a half-hour delay.) For once, performers maintain their accents while singing, a refreshing change.
The leads handle the complexities given to them in this new staging. Laird Mackintosh reveals Higgins’ vulnerability earlier than we’re used to; he makes the character a spoiled, immature boy, rather than a true misogynist. Adam Grupper’s lustily sung Doolittle seems equally capable of conning money out of Higgins and Pickering when sober or beating it out of Eliza when drunk. Kevin Pariseau sounds Pickering’s lone note of vigorous, slightly clueless kindness, and Sam Simahk’s lovely singing almost makes Freddy sympathetic instead of simpering.
Shereen Ahmed crowns the show with a performance of fire and dignity, whether as the grungy caterpillar who sells violets or the social butterfly who conquers society. Even standing silently to the side as Higgins and Pickering exult boorishly over their transformation of her, this Eliza reveals a deeper soul than any of the men in her life.
“My Fair Lady”
WHEN: Through Jan. 26 at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Audio Description and ASL provided at Sunday matinee.
WHERE: Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd.
TICKETS: $25-$109.50.
DETAILS: 704-372-1000 or blumenthalarts.org.
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This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 10:46 AM.