BWW Reviews: Fast-paced PYGMALION at Williamstown Theatre Festival

The fresh and fast paced new production of PYGMALION on the stage of the Williamstown Theatre Festival is a wonder, and fans of George Bernard Shaw (GBS) would do well to plan an impromptu trip to see it. Fans of My Fair Lady will get to know the famous characters even better than in the famous musical, though you might expect the cast to break out in song at any moment. Seeing PYGMALION clues you in to the fact that Alan Jay Lerner did not so much create the lyrics for the musical as simply crib some of them from the original GBS script.

It has been a hundred years since George Bernard Shaw wrote PYGMALION, the most popular and beloved of all his plays, yet since the first performance on stage its ending has often been declared unsatisfactory by those who like the leading couple to end up married. Since Higgins and Dolittle do NOT walk into the sunset together, producers and actors have been prompted to ad lib various endings that suggest otherwise. It annoyed GBS so much that he actually penned an epilogue, an essay so detailed and convoluted that it is surprising that some Hollywood filmmaker hasn't announced "Pygmalion, The Sequal: Eliza's Revenge."

There has been speculation that there is a novel twist to the Nicholas Martin version of PYGMALION, and it is true. The director has incorporated a surprise in the final act of the Williamstown Theatre Festival version, but I am not about to reveal it.

In what has to be one of the smartest productions of PYGMALION in recent times, director Nicholas Martin has rethought, redirected and reinvented the classic story of the wretchedly unschooled and ill-mannered Eliza Doolittle (Heather Lind) and the phonetics Professor Henry Higgins (Robert Sean Leonard) who transforms her from an object of scorn to one of beauty and sophistication. And while Leonard is a master of proper English on stage, it is Lind who not only must duplicate the dulcet tones of highbrow London manor-born sophisticates, but also has the challenging task of delivering her first two acts in the sometimes inscrutable cockney dialect. Shaw tries to duplicate the sounds by writing one of her lines thusly:

THE FLOWER GIRL. Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them?

(Both Shaw and I stop here, with apologies, since this attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.)

The role of the draggletailed guttersnipe Eliza Dolittle has made many an aspiring actor's career - including Julie Andrews in the Broadway musical My Fair Lady though the film producers were afraid she wouldn't sell tickets and cast Audrey Hepburn instead. Last night in Williamstown another indelible Eliza was revealed - Heather Lind, and she made the role her own, and if she reminded me of anyone, it is Angela Lansbury. Her subtle and delicious comic chops are that good, especially when contrasted with the controlled Robert Sean Leonard as the clueless, misogynistic Professor Henry Higgins.

As Lind delivered her lines the vowels and consonants all rolled off her tongue perfectly, yet unless you understood the slang she used, much of what she said was perplexing and of course, fascinating to Professor Higgins who soon accepted a bet as to whether he could transform such a "creature" into someone who could pass for a Duchess.

While Leonard succeeded in making Higgins more humorous than annoying, his character was still startlingly oblivious, asexual, insensitive and apron-string tied. His outspoken housekeeper Mrs. Pearce (Caitlin O'Connell) covered for him and helped smooth things over when she could but also knew her place. His mother spent most of her time correcting him, pleading for him to be more aware of people's feelings, and often, to just shut up. As Mrs. Higgins, Maureen Anderman has some of the best lines of the play. For example, she reminds him: "You can't stay. Every time my friends meet you, they never want to come back." Or when she reminds her son that while his pronunciation may be perfect, his choice of words leaves a lot to be desired. He insists his language is proper and she deadpans: "No dearest: it would be quite proper - say on a canal barge...."

Equally delightful are the two extended appearances of Eliza Dolittle's father played by a perfect Don Lee Sparks. In the first he arrives as a con-man looking to shake the professor down for allowing his daughter to live in his house. In the second half he arrives as the unhappy beneficiary of a generous will which requires him to become respectable. When Sparks is on stage everyone else just about fades to near-invisibility. He not only fills out his role, he overflows it, as Shaw has him dominate the proceedings and his delicious acting easily earns the biggest laughs of the evening.

Close behind him, however, is Heather Lind when her third act Eliza first pretends to be a sophisticated society person whose perfect enunciation is betrayed by her plebeian roots. Freddy Eynsford Hill (Federico Rodriguez) and his mother (Patricia Conolly) and sister Clara (Maura Hooper) are taken in, but once again, not Mrs. Higgins.

When Higgins and his associate Colonial Pickering (Paxton Whitehead) gloat at their success and ask her opinion, she delivers a withering response: "You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll." They are more defensice than devastated.

And so it goes for five acts as Higgins tinkers with this flower girl, not giving a second thought to the fact that she might have feelings, and what will become of her when the bet is over and won.

The revolving sets for Pygmalion as well as the sound and music were all well designed. The Professor lived a bit of a disorganized life physically, his ordered intellect taking priority, so Higgins' flat was quite a busy jumble. His mother's Drawing Room was bright and cheery, perhaps reflecting her outlook on life.

SInce it was written, the decades have seen mega changes in language, situations and the kinds of stories people like. When this play was written, women did not even have the right to vote, that would not come in most of the US until 1920. Women in older plays are confined to male imagined roles, though Eliza does declare her independence from Higgins although her future seems to be tied to the necessity of marriage. That has changed. But that is not the only thing that was different from today. The visits to Mrs.Higgins were on her "at home days" which is when people planned to be around so visitors could drop in. The phone, a new contraption, was isolated from the parlor so as not to interrupt, the servants could tend to the calls. There was a formal ritual involved with these visits and much protocol, but all that has been lost as we look askance at today's visitors spending their time texting instead of talking.

As a period piece PYGMALION is a gem, and makes the good life back then appear to be a simple matter of whether you are well born or not. Today, it is still true to some degree. The difference is that back then you had to be tutored to rise up beyond your birth destiny by someone who was either kind-hearted or challenged by the task. As Eliza says: "The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will."

In this fresh and funny 100 year old play, there are more than just laughs to be had, there are some interesting life lessons as well.

Williamstown Theatre Festival presents PYGMALION by George Bernard Shaw, Directed by Nicholas Martin, Sets by Alexander Dodge, Costumes by Gabriel Berry & Andrea Hood, Lights by Philip Rosenberg, Sound by Drew Levy, Original Music by Mark Bennett, Hair and Wig Design by Cookie Jordan, Dialect and Vocal Coach - Deborah Hecht, Production Stage Manager - Jillian M. Oliver, Production Manager - Eric Nottke. Cast: Clara - Maura Hooper; Mrs. Eynsford Hill - Patricia Connelly; Bystander - Dan O'Brien; Freddy Eynsford Hill - Federico Rodriguez; Eliza Dolittle - Heather Lind; Colonel Pickering - Paxton Whitehead; Professor Henry Higgins - Robert Sean Leonard; Taxi Man - Alex Seife; Mrs.Pearce - Caitlin O'Connell; Mr. Doolittle - Don Lee Sparks; Mrs. Higgins - Maureen Anderman; Parlor Maid - Ariana Siegel; Ensemble - Robert Allan, Eric Began Brian Evans, Timothy Thompson. Five Acts with One Intermission. July 17-27, 2013. On the Main Stage '62 Center for the Arts, Williams College, Main Street, Williamstown, MA. www.wtfestival.org 413.597.3400

Photo: T.Charles Erickson

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