Foothill Music Theatre's My Fair Lady


In the brand spanking new Lohman Theatre

I've seen My Fair Lady several times, between the movie and local productions. Its score is even more familiar, as we had the album when I was a kid, and its songs are oft-used for auditions and revues.

Honestly, it's never been one of those shows that resonated with me. Higgins is so unlikeable. Eliza is so malleable in the end. Freddy is so useless. The other characters from Higgins' mom to Alfred P. Doolittle to the servants to Pickering seem like one-dimensional British caricatures. And the charming chorus of Eliza's fellow Cockneys always seemed a bit patronizing. I mean if these are really people in the poorest lower classes, do we really think they're hopping about sing gay tra-las (all with a pint in their hand)?

Alls I'm sayin' is that I was here to support a few friends, not because I was dying to see another production of My Fair Lady. (And because I was quite curious to see the new theatre.)

Luckily this is as lovely a production as you're probably going to find. I really do believe that seeing shows in intimate theatre settings with some pared down elements (in this case, performed only with two pianos rather than with an orchestra) lets you look at them with new eyes and appreciate things about them you never did before.

The primary eye-opening elements of this production:

-Seeing more nuance and variances in Higgins' character (as played by Kit Wilder)...including a sense of humor and a real passionate belief that his work could tear down the barriers of class more effectively than other methods.

-Seeing Eliza's (as played by Mindy Lym) driving motivation as being about improving her lot in life for the long-term, which helps her bear the insults and slights in the short-term.

Along the way we were treated to some lovely singing, which in a small house, accompanied only by two pianos, was easily heard without amplification...ever more rare, and always more enjoyable. Especially a most sincere and soaring On the Street Where You Live (as sung by my friend Mike Earley.)

I admit I was still a bit thrown by the sparkling cleanliness of the Covent Garden denizens (including Eliza) who sported only evenly applied smudges of dirt...a cheek here, a chin there...but when I really thought about it, I decided that My Fair Lady doesn't need a new production that focuses on the grungy realism of the day.

Back in 1994 I was in Foothill's production of Threepenny Opera, and director Jay Manley did expend the effort to surround the production with a more sinister sense of the squalor that would have been everyone's reality at that time. But that was fitting with what Brecht and Weill might have had in mind with their rather dissonant and nihilistic piece.

My Fair Lady doesn't have the same tone and wouldn't benefit from the same treatment.

It did benefit, though, from a more thoughtful Higgins and a more determined Eliza.

Bottom line: I enjoyed it way more than I expected, and I'm not surprised it's a big, hot hit for Foothill Music Theatre.


Posted: Sat - March 8, 2008 at 12:08 PM       EmailFeedback

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