Leads carry ‘My Fair Lady’ to success

  • By Patty Tackaberry / Special to The Herald
  • Thursday, May 13, 2004 9:00pm
  • LifeGo-See-Do

MONROE – Monroe’s Off The Wall Theatre and Take A Bough Productions have joined forces to stage Lerner and Loewe’s musical blockbuster, “My Fair Lady.”

Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1914 play “Pygmalion,” the original Broadway production, directed by Moss Hart, opened in March 1956 and starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. Over its more than nine-year run, audiences fell in love with such memorable show stoppers as “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “With a Little Bit o’ Luck,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” “The Rain In Spain (Falls Mainly in the Plain),” and “I’m Gettin’ Married in the Morning.” The 1964 screen adaptation paired Harrison with Audrey Hepburn.

Peter S. Blake directs the Monroe cast. His show is bolstered by the choreography of Robert Allen and an orchestra conducted by Dave Pallo. (At times, one wishes there was room in the Frank Wagner Auditorium to move the orchestra in front of the players in order to better hear the instruments.)

Vicki Dorsey’s set decoration reveals a London scene, circa 1912, that looks in at cockney street urchins selling flowers around Covent Garden.

One of those, Eliza Doolittle (Sheryl Corbijn), is targeted by Professor Henry Higgins (William Snider), a “detective of language” who can detect any regional dialect. Higgins intends to use Eliza in an experiment to see if he can transform her from a brash cockney lass into an aristocratic-tongued lady.

Higgins plants a dare, telling Colonel Pickering (Frank Jarnot) he can pass off Eliza, whom he derogatorily terms a “squashed cabbage leaf,” as a queen of Sheba.

Corbijn and Snider’s voices carry this show. They are well cast: he the perennial bachelor, she the scrappy yet somehow refined woman who will penetrate his defenses. Corbijn’s voice soars with operatic strength and beauty, especially at the conclusion of “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

Also quite good in their roles are the quartet of cockney lads who harmonize as they warm hands over a burning barrel, dreaming of “good things to eat” in “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” Especially winning is tenor Stephen M. Mosher.

The more than three-hour show has some of its best moments when the entire ensemble is gathered on stage with voices rich and full.

Choreography is at its best in such scenes as one in which Eliza’s deadbeat dad, Alfred Doolittle (Don Speirs) kicks up his heels over the prospect of cashing in on his daughter’s new station in “With a Little Bit ‘o Luck,” or the one at Ascot Opening Day, in which the aristocratic lords and ladies promenade in costume designer Sharon Drake’s Edwardian top hats and gowns.

Dorsey’s swivel sets alternately display Higgins’ parlor, or the gutters behind Covent Garden.

Snider is right on target at portraying a Higgins so caught up in his academic exercise he thoroughly objectifies Eliza, losing sight of her as a person with feelings. “She’s so deliciously low!” he crows, anticipating how he alone can elevate her.

Higgins becomes particularly taskmasterly in an elocution lesson that runs into the wee hours, but sees ultimate success as the duo sings “Rain in Spain.” It is also at this time that Eliza’s feelings for Higgins dawn on her.

It ultimately falls to another aristocrat and a woman, Higgins’ own mother (Susan Weingarten), to call him on his snobbery.

While Higgins may deride womankind (“Why is thinking something women never do?” he asks in “Let a Woman in Your Life”), his dismissal of the fairer sex ironically backfires on him. The fair lady he creates not only can speak like a king’s consort, she can stand up to him and reject his mistreatment. “I’m not dirt under your feet,” she tells him. “I can do without you.”

While it takes Higgins considerably longer to appreciate Eliza’s charms, Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Monty F. Nail) is smitten by her at once, singing the signature tune “On the Street Where You Live.”

Finally Higgins overcomes his myopia, seeing the treasure Eliza truly is as he sings “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face.”

Sheryl Corbijn stars as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.”

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