To describe Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY as a classic is to understate just how beloved this musical adaptation of Shaw’s "Pygmalion" is, and tagging the production currently playing at Hancher Auditorium as merely "fair" would also a considerable understatement.
This very British work, of course, builds its plot around the class-oriented dialect variants of British English, and that conceit makes having an actual British version of MY FAIR LADY – a U.S. tour produced by Cameron Mackintosh and the National Theatre of Great Britain – really something special. As directed by Trevor Nunn and designed by Anthony Ward, it is a swiftly-moving and finely-crafted work that revels in its national origins.
The cast, including Lisa O’Hare as Eliza Doolittle and Christopher Cazenove as Professor Higgins, all do wonderful work with this familiar material. Despite the imbalance of an orchestra with too much sound and actors with too little (at Wednesday’s opening), they turn in a collective performance that often alternates from grand and beautiful to a rollicking good time. This dichotomy is at the heart of our heroine’s struggle, and the constant reminder of the gulf between the upper and lower classes makes her plight very clear.
Nowhere is the class line more clearly drawn than in the first act’s contrast between the raucous "With a Little Bit of Luck" and the utterly prim "Ascot Gavotte." In the first, Eliza’s alcoholic father (the outstanding Tim Jerome, who works the crowd with his booze-laden cheer) sings of what he hopes to find, and the second is a beautiful but totally upper-lip treatment by an ensemble that is almost unbelievably crisp in its constantly-changing tableau. Like other company numbers, these songs sound really wonderful – and "Get Me to the Church on Time" is an over-the-top comical number that pulls out all the stops to earn huge laughs.
Even with the wealth of talent in the ensemble, it is the principals who really make this a stellar show. Cazenove is a crusty Higgins, full of the supercilious sense of privilege that is the character’s trademark. He and Walter Charles (who is deft and appealing as Col. Pickering) are a particularly enjoyable pair of performers, and Cazenove is also great with O’Hare, whose effervescent performance is at the center of musical’s success.
O’Hare is a fabulous singer – with a strong, clear voice that can convey a surfeit of emotion in a sweet, fragile whisper of a single note just as easily as she can show some brass during high-volume defiance. Her fantastic lead vocals during "Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?" establish her as the heart and soul of the show from its very beginning. As an actor, she draws deeply on a well of emotion to show us Eliza’s loss after the big success at the embassy ball, and her fully realistic portrayal is quietly powerful.
Other standouts in the cast include Justin Bohon as Freddy Eynsford-Hill and Sally Ann Howes as Mrs. Higgins – both of whom are terrific – but it is Ward’s design that comes closest to rivaling O’Hare’s great performance. The set is a smooth blend of graceful art and soft realism, with plenty of great lines and small touches that strike just the right mood in scene after scene. I especially enjoyed the book-crammed library, the summer-bright conservatory at Mrs. Higgins’ house, the crates and fires in Covent Garden, and the bawdy-house transition during "Get Me to the Church on Time."
Altogether, this MY FAIR LADY is one almost anyone would try to claim, and the remaining performances at Hancher are well worth braving the crowds and the cold. It’s quite a show.
