Review: MY FAIR LADY Stirs Up Conversation at the Benedum Center

If you're the sort of person who reads BroadwayWorld, especially the local section, it's probably safe to assume you're both familiar with My Fair Lady and familiar with the controversy over Bartlett Sher's altered presentation of the ending. While the classic musical traditionally ends with Eliza returning to Henry Higgins's home and resuming her position in his household, with a very strong implication of a burgeoning romance, Sher ended his Lincoln Center production with Eliza walking out on Higgins once and for all. Some have loved it, some have hated it, but it's a choice that always leads to passionate discourse after the show. And when a musical is based on the works of playwright/philosopher George Bernard Shaw, nothing feels more appropriate than passionate discourse.

Bartlett Sher, the modern master of A-list revivals, made almost no changes to the text of My Fair Lady beyond dropping a single line, but he's still played up the darkness, the comedy and the social commentary while downplaying the two rather problematic pseudo-romances. Gone is the Henry Higgins who seems to just need a woman's touch to blossom; instead, Sher's Higgins is charming yet quasi-sociopathic, and strongly implied to be asexual as well. Alfred P. Doolittle's lovable roguery is a lot less lovable here too, leaning on the text's characterization of the man as a borderline-homeless, amoral pimp. Does this sound less than fun? You'd be wrong if you said so, because this production absolutely snaps and crackles with comic energy; the romance may have gone, but there's a gleefully incisive sense of dark comedy in its place. 

Maybe you haven't seen My Fair Lady or Pygmalion, but if you've seen She's All That you've already got the gist: language snob Professor Henry Higgins (Jonathan Grunert) makes a bet with fellow linguist Colonel Pickering (John Adkison) that he can turn rough-talking Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Anette Barrios-Torres) into a "proper lady" by teacher her diction and manners. The two bachelors take Eliza in and attempt to mold her into their idea of an acceptable upper-class lady. It works... to unfortunate results. Along the way, their attempts at grooming her into their ideal are complicated by the involvement of Eliza's opportunistic father Alfred (Michael Hegarty) and her upper-class stalker Freddy (Nathan Haltiwanger), who seems much more attached to the simple idea of Eliza than to her complicated reality. 

Bartlett Sher's touring cast may not be helmed by a huge star like Lauren Ambrose or Laura Benanti (as few tours are), but his cast of characters is lively, colorful and appealingly gritty. This show rarely if ever feels like Mary Poppins, the way the film sometimes does. Anette Barrios-Torres navigates one of the most linguistically tricky roles in musical theatre with aplomb, nailing the various levels of accent and dialect, plus the comic timing, physical comedy and pratfalls Eliza is responsible for, as if she was born for it. Jonathan Grunert matches her every step of the way as Henry Higgins, all neurotic delicacy and obsessive hissy fits. There's a little of Sherlock Holmes and a little of Sheldon Cooper in Grunert's Higgins, and thankfully precious little Rex Harrison (or Stewie Griffin for that matter). I'll make the proclamation right now: Jonathan Grunert has the greatest command of the sprechstimme technique since Danny Elfman in The Nightmare Before Christmas thirty years ago. The way Grunert shifts from speech to melodic singing and back, sometimes within a single syllable, honors both Frederick Loewe's wonderful melodies and Rex Harrison's famous almost-completely-spoken performance as Higgins without giving short shrift to either. 

Michael Hegarty makes Alfred P. Doolittle into one of those characters you just love to hate, applying teddy-bear energy and a touch of Rubeus Hagrid to one of the most genuinely vile individuals in musical theatre. (This is, after all, a man who eagerly attempts to pimp out his daughter for a measly five pounds.) At the other end of the spectrum, John Adkison makes Col. Pickering into the show's heart, and certainly its conscience as well. Beneath his affected, effete delicacy there is a true gentleman, one who Eliza learns to truly care for in a way Higgins, even at his most benevolent, could never match. I know it may seem offensive to say the best part of a show was the gay jokes, but here they seemed essential; though Higgins is a "confirmed bachelor" because of his absolute disdain for women, we gradually realize through a series of gently escalating gags that Pickering has no harsh feelings towwards women, but merely a greater affection for men, which Higgins seems utterly ignorant to despite repeat indications. When Pickering declares he's making a call to an old chum, only to immediately switch his vocal tone and body language to a man talking to his paramour, he gets one of the biggest and best-deserved laughs of the night.

Christopher Gattelli's choreography is inobtrusive and minimal; while My Fair Lady has long been a show known for its grand choreography and knees-up musical numbers, it's pared back here to something rather resembling quasi-realism. The choreographic highlight is the Act 2 production number "Get Me to the Church on Time," when Alfred and his friends throw a last-minute bachelor party. Rather than the traditional musical theatre "tavern dance" that usually ensues, Sher's production moves the party to a French-style burlesque house, where Alfred gets to frolic with can-can dancers, a drag queen and a drag king. It's a move that both feels extremely contemporary and utterly period-appropriate. 

The production at large is as lush and satisfying as any Bartlett Sher production is always guaranteed to be. I had gone in expecting a rather dry evening, but Sher's magic never fails: one of the stodgiest of Golden Age shows has been brought back to resonant, riotous life, with more to say than ever. It might be "Men are Trash: the Musical," but damn, damn, damned if it doesn't bring the house down!

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