Reviews 2002
Reviews 2002
✭✭✭✩✩
music by Frederick Loewe, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, directed by Richard Monette
Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford
May 28-November 24, 2002
"My Fair Higgins?"
The Stratford Festival production of “My Fair Lady” is an enjoyable show which is sure to be the hit of the season. The musical numbers have a verve and panache that match some of Stratford’s best musical productions of the past. Weak direction, however, permits a major imbalance between the two lead roles that distorts the emphasis of the plot and makes nonsense of the ending.
“My Fair Lady” is one of the most resilient musicals ever written. One much-loved song follows another with much opportunity for spectacle. Based as it is on George Bernard Shaw “Pygmalion”, even the dialogue is witty. Alan Jay Lerner’s decision to alter the ending of Shaw’s play is the main source of difficulty. In Shaw, the story is clearly that of the pupil surpassing her master. Like a child to a parent, Shaw’s Eliza is indebted to Professor Higgins only up to a point after which she has to be considered a free agent able to move beyond her master’s narrowness. Shaw’s Higgins like Pygmalion may fall in love with his “creation”, but Shaw’s point is that this is a human being not a lump of marble. Shaw’s Eliza’s leaves Higgins, marries Freddy Eynsford-Hill and sets up her shop.
In the musical, however, Eliza seemingly allows herself to be convinced by Higgins’s rant against Freddy and returns to the master who is still dominated by his mother, as egotistical and full of tantrums as a child, hates women and shows Eliza nothing but abuse. To top it all off, Higgins’s demeaning response to her return, the last line of the show, is “Eliza, fetch me my slippers”. To make the musical’s ending palatable, a director has to set the groundwork early on that despite all his bluster Higgins has fallen in love with Eliza and Eliza knows it before he does.
In Stratford’s previous production of “My Fair Lady” in 1988, John Neville as Higgins was more than twice the age of Lucy Peacock as Eliza. When Jean Gascon directed Eliza not merely to fetch the slippers but put them on Higgins, the effect was more than vaguely sickening. Here with Cynthia Dale as Eliza and Colm Feore as the first of three Higginses (Geraint Wyn Davies and Richard Monette will follow), the closeness in age goes a long way to making the two a more probable romantic pair. Unfortunately, Colm Feore’s overacting undermines this possibility and creates a imbalance. At first it seems exciting to have a young, energetic Higgins for a change. Gradually, however, it becomes clear that director Richard Monette has allowed Feore to steal the show. Feore bounds up and down stairs, prances all about the stage striking poses, all the while Dale’s movement (except in musical numbers) is limited. Except for James Blendick as Eliza’s father and Joyce Campion as Mrs. Higgins, Feore gives focus to no one but simply takes and takes. Feore’s self-involved performance means there is absolutely no chemistry between Higgins and Eliza. His arrogance makes it impossible to understand Eliza’s return to him and distorts the show by making it seem Higgins not Eliza is the central character.
Dale seems to bide her time during the dialogue while Feore shows off until the musical numbers when it’s her turn to shine. She is much better as Eliza after Higgins’s make-over than before, failing to make the flower-seller as “deliciously low” as she should be. Being the musical star at Stratford for four of the last six seasons seems to have taken a toll on her voice, but her accustomed energy and enthusiam come through in every number.
For me James Blendick as Alfred Doolittle is the chief joy in the cast. He makes this lovable old rogue into the most believable character in the show. He delivers his two famous songs with style, brings off his dance steps with aplomb and exudes a kind of warmth otherwise absent in the production. Barry MacGregor is perfectly cast as Colonel Pickering, more befuddled than Higgins but kinder. Laird Mackintosh, suitably bland as Freddy, sings “On the Street Where You Live” in a noisy tenor.
In smaller roles Joyce Campion is a delight as Higgins’s mother and it’s a treat to see her character repeatedly put her conceited brat of a son in his place. Susan Gilmour doesn’t make as much of Higgins’s proper housekeeper Mrs. Pearce as she could. Raymond O’Neill’s Zoltan Karpathy is so bizarre it’s hard to know what he saying. Barbara Fulton has the right sense of dignity as Freddy’s mother.
Designer Debra Hanson’s faux-marble set is quite attractive, but as was the case in “Fiddler on the Roof” she seems unwilling to break down her costumes even when the text demands it. Except for three picturesque holes there’s nothing to suggest that Doolittle wears the same outfit every day. When Eliza visits Higgins in her best dress, one that Higgins sends out to be burnt, Hanson doesn’t get the joke and gives Eliza a costume that looks far too expensive. Eliza may have grime on her face but there’s none on her clothes. Hanson does the Ascot scene in the traditional black and white, but she has each woman wear so many patterns it looks as if they all wearing parts of each other’s ensembles.
The real star of the show is Donna Feore’s spectacular choreography. She draws on a wide dance vocabulary from musical hall to ballroom to ballet and creates such complex patterns of movement the Festival stage seems much larger than it actually is. Kevin Fraser draws on a wide range of lighting techniques but I could have done without the projected race horses before the Ascot scene (the point is we don’t see them) and the starry lights on either side of the stage that make a scene kitschy whenever they’re used.
After the Embassy Ball, Pickering congratulates Higgins with “You Did It”. Feore’s aggressive scene-stealing and Monette’s passive direction seem to support this view contrary to the text. Let’s hope Geraint Wyn Davies who takes on Higgins (July 14 to September 14) and Monette himself (September 18-November 24) give more gracious performances that restore the show’s balance. Let’s also hope that the sound engineer turns down the volume of the amplified music. My ears hurt after the show and throughout the next day--not the best reminder of a musical at Stratford.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Colm Feore and Cynthia Dale. ©2002 Stratford Festival.
2002-07-08
My Fair Lady