[NEohioPAL] Review of "My Fair Lady" at Beck Center for the Arts

[Bob Abelman]

Beck offers a delightful, back-to-basics 'My Fair Lady'

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald on 9/24/10

 

 

My Fair Lady, currently in production at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood, has quite a pedigree.  

 

It is most remembered as a thoroughly delightful 1964 film, made during an era when many Broadway musicals were turned into elaborate Hollywood productions.  It won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

 

The film is based on a classic piece of American musical theatre that emerged in 1956 during one of the great hay-days of musical theatre.  It won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

 

First and foremost, however, My Fair Lady is the play Pygmalion, written in 1912 by George Bernard Shaw, with songs inserted.

 

Shaw's play tells the tale of a high-handed, high-brow British phonetician named Henry Higgins, who places a wager with his priggish sidekick Colonel Pickering that he can transform a young, Cockney guttersnipe into a duchess simply by improving her vocabulary and manner of speech.  The guttersnipe is Eliza Doolittle.  Like the playwright himself, Higgins is a firm believer in the power of the poetry in the English language. 

 

Paul Gurgol understands and appreciates My Fair Lady's literary heritage, and is not the kind of fellow to direct just another production of this now iconic work.  In his Beck Center rendition, he calls attention to the play's Shaw-manship.  

 

Some innovations are small.  The show opens with a statue coming to life-a nice, albeit highly obscure homage to the work that inspired Shaw's play.  In Metamorphoses, written by ancient Greek poet Ovid, a sculptor named Pygmalion falls in love with an ivory statue he has made.  She comes to life and they marry.  

 

Some innovations are more substantial.  The huge ensemble typically assembled in productions of this grand musical has been limited to nine individuals, several of whom also play small character roles.   By reducing the scale of the typically big production numbers, the story and its wordplay are accentuated.

 

The show closes with another obscure twist concerning Eliza's fate after Higgins has achieved his goals.  The script calls for the two to come together at the end. The Beck rendition implies a potentially different ending, based on the Afterward written by Shaw upon the publication of his play.  

 

Gurgol's vision is delivered very effectively by performers capable of developing rich and interesting characters to sustain the storyline and not just deliver the show's songs.

 

Bob Russell has turned the stiff, erudite and fairly one-dimensional Higgins from stage and screen into a round, pampered and petulant man-child in this production.  Gone is Higgins' charm, replaced by playfulness.  Gone is the sexual tension between Higgins and Eliza; only the tension remains.   These are intriguing trade-offs.

 

Higgins' lack of charm is more than made up for in Dana Hart's enchanting rendering of Pickering.  He is the perfect playmate for Russell's Higgins-the voice of what is proper but a pliable and willing accomplice in what is not. Charming is not as easy to play as it would seem, and Hart is wonderful.

 

Veteran actor George Roth dons the tattered wardrobe of Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's ne'er-do-well father, and does so in fine fashion.  Roth's very presence on stage and the warmth he exudes improves the show's climate and showcases the richness that can be found in Shaw's words. 

 

Of course, at the end of the day, My Fair Lady is a classic American musical, and not just a Shaw play with songs inserted.  

 

The songs are brilliant, comprised of the irresistibly hummable music by Fredrick Loewe and memorable lyrics by Alan Lerner. Rather than interrupt the play's cleverly conceived conversation and its linguistic rhythms, the music and lyrics are intended to be a natural and harmonious extension of the conversation.  Music Director Larry Goodpaster and his orchestra deliver Lerner and Loewe's songs with the sumptuousness they deserve. 

 

Most of the best songs, including "I Could Have Danced All Night," belong to Eliza, performed to perfection by Valerie Reaper.   Establishing herself as an ideal ingénue with a pure soprano in her portrayal of Johanna in last summer's Sweeney Todd at Cain Park, Reaper has added gumption and spirit to her repertoire.  Hers is a joyful performance that is a pleasure to watch.

 

There is some collateral damage to Gurgol's innovations.

 

"With a Little Bit of Luck," "Embassy Waltz" and "Get Me to The Church on Time" are rather underwhelming affairs as musical production numbers go due, in large part, to the small albeit impressive ensemble.  They are given a minimal amount of choreography that is both gimmicky and inorganic.  The performers are well appointed in Sarah Russell's magnificent costuming and play on Russ Borski's rich and spacious set, but this only creates the impression that everyone is all dressed up with nowhere to go.  

 

True to the work's heritage, Beck Center's version of My Fair Lady is delightful.  With its Shaw-centric sensibilities, audiences will be thinking as they head for the parking lot and not just humming the show tunes.  This is an atypical but welcome exit strategy for a classic piece of American musical theatre.

 

My Fair Lady runs through October 17 at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.    For tickets, which range from $10-$28, call 216-521-2540 x 10 or visit www.beckcenter.org.

 
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