Review: A Loverly Night at Thalia Mara Hall with MY FAIR LADY

What makes a woman a proper lady? Phonetics Professor Henry Higgins seems to know, and he is even willing to make a bold wager to prove it! Will he be able to turn street girl Eliza Doolittle, with manners and diction that he abhors, into a lady fit to be mistaken for a duchess in just 6 months? Or will he fail, and leave her to return to life on the streets with no more promise of an easier, more respectable life than before?

On the evening of Wednesday, January 17, the national tour of The Lincoln Center Theater Production of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady opened the Broadway in Jackson season at Thalia Mara Hall presented by Trustmark. Presented by Crossroads Live North America, the musical is adapted from both George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture by the same name. It features a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. 

My Fair Lady follows young Eliza, played by Anette Barrios-Torres, as she calls on Professor Higgins, with understudy Andrew Fehrenbacher stepping into the role for Wednesday night for a hometown performance, to make good on his peculiar bet and transform her from a common flower girl into a lady who society would believe to be royalty. If not for the call board announcing that this was a change from the norm, you’d never have known that the pair didn’t perform opposite each other every night. Each played off the other seamlessly, effortlessly elevating the story they were telling. Equally evenly matched vocally, the duo wowed audience members with some of the most iconic songs in theatre history - Barrios-Torres’ stunning soprano voice, with an indescribably beautiful tone, was an unforgettable experience to hear singing “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “The Rain in Spain” alongside Fehrenbacher (and John Addison, who plays Colonel Pickering, the other party in the wager over Eliza’s transformation into a lady). Fehrenbacher made a masterclass of the fast-paced “I’m an Ordinary Man” and angst-filled “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”. Together, they are an absolute delight, whether songs from older musicals are your usual favorite style or not.

Accompanying Barrios-Torres and Fehrenbacher are aforementioned John Addison’s often humorous Colonel Pickering, who stays with Higgins and Eliza for the duration of the wager, who tries to temper Higgins’ intensity and who comes to care for Eliza’s company immensely. Often exasperated by their lessons and Eliza’s manners, Higgins’ housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce (Maeghin Mueller) grows fond of her, too. At first horrified by her presence, even Professor Higgins’ mother, Mrs. Higgins (Becky Saunders) becomes amused by her as well. Less than pleasing to Higgins is Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Nathan Haltiwanger), whose infatuation with Eliza (“On the Street Where You Live”, “Show Me”) grates his nerves, even if he won’t admit to himself exactly why. But perhaps the greatest comedic relief of all, though, comes from Eliza’s leech of a father, Alfred P. Doolittle, played by Michael Hegarty, and the raucous entourage who join in what would best be described as a bachelor party once he finally agrees to marry the woman he is seeing (“Get Me to the Church on Time”). Rounded off by an incredible ensemble, there’s not a weak spot to be found in the show’s cast.

My Fair Lady is a classic whose Broadway roots may go back to the ‘50s, but whose takeaway of a woman coming into her own and demanding to be treated better is just as powerful and relevant today. This is not a production to be missed!

The itinerary and ticket links to the tour’s upcoming stops can be found at the link below.

https://www.myfairladyontour.com/#tour-container

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