For their last show of its season, the
Heights Players have pulled out all the stops for that most extravagant
of extravaganzas, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s "My
Fair Lady."
Thomas N. Tyler directs a cast of more than 30 actors, and that
includes doubling, and sometimes tripling up on parts. He’s also
enlisted the talents of choreographers Gina Healy and James Martinelli,
costume designer Albert Walsh, musical director Ray Jordan and
scenic designer Bill Wood. The result is "loverly."
A smash hit in the 1950s, "My Fair Lady" came into
being mostly through the persistence of Hungarian film producer
Gabriel Pascal, who devoted the last two years of his life to
finding writers who would want to adapt George Bernard Shaw’s
1913 play, "Pygmalion," into a musical.
Rogers and Hammerstein didn’t want it. Noel Coward rejected it.
Finally, a young but talented team, Lerner and Loewe, came up
to the plate, and the rest is history.
The musical opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on March 15,
1956, and ran for a then-record breaking 2,717 performances before
closing on Sept. 29, 1962, at the Broadway Theatre. The show
won nine Tony Awards including Best Musical, and has remained
steady fare both on and off-Broadway. (There have been three
major Broadway revivals, one in each of the last three decades,
and the famous 1964 movie starring Rex Harrison – who also starred
on Broadway – as Henry Higgins and Audrey Hepburn, who replaced
Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolitte, despite the fact that she was
not a singer and needed the dubbing of Marni Nixon.)
Why is "My Fair Lady" such a classic? Quite simply
because it has everything – beautiful costumes, great dance numbers
and a score filled with one memorable song after another.
"My Fair Lady" is a fine example of the "integrated
musical," in which both song and dance are not embellishments,
but actually serve to advance the plot. Much of this is due to
witty patter songs such as "I’m an Ordinary Man" and
"Hymn to Him," which Lerner and Loewe wrote for Harrison’s
limited vocal abilities. But one could equally point to the exuberant
"Get Me to the Church on Time" and "A Little Bit
of Luck" sung by Eliza Doolittle’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle;
Eliza’s waltz, "I Could Have Danced All Night"; or
the "Ascot Gavotte" sequence – all of which entertain
while giving the audience important information.
The Heights Players production owes its success in great part
to its leading actors.
Ellen Copaken blithely sings and dances her way from the Cockney
flower girl to the fair lady. She is believably defiant and dainty,
and sometimes both at the same time. Her sweet and powerful voice
is always a pleasure to hear.
Jerry Kahn might have been born in tweeds. He is irresistible
as the irascible Henry Higgins, and his voice is better than
Harrison’s.
Ed Healy, as Colonel Hugh Pickering, is a little more Healy than
Pickering, but somehow he manages to pull it off admirably.
Steven Bergquist returns to the Heights Players as Alfred P.
Doolittle after a long absence. Watching him prance across the
stage, or going head-to-head with Higgins, one can only hope
he won’t repeat his long absence.
As for the supporting cast and ensemble, except for a few blunders,
such as Leslie Ross, who neither looks nor acts like a convincing
Mrs. Higgins and John Bourne, who is neither a singer nor a dancer,
they are for the most part an asset to the play.
Healy and Martinelli have bent over backward – and every other
way, too – to create lively dances that do not overreach the
ability of their dancers. And even those who don’t get in the
movement look fine standing still, dressed in Walsh’s array of
flowing gowns, feathered hats and fine linen.
Almost a half-century after it first opened, "My Fair Lady"
is as fresh as one of the newly cut flowers Eliza sells. Its
music has not gone out of style, and its humor does not seem
out of date.
What a piece of luck that the Heights Players are reviving "My
Fair Lady" once again!
The Heights Players’ production of "My Fair Lady" runs
through May 18, Friday through Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at
2 pm, at 26 Willow Place between State and Joralemon streets
in Brooklyn Heights. Tickets are $15, $13 students and seniors.
For reservations, call (718) 237-2752.
