“Man Plans and G-d Laughs”
A play review of “My Fair Lady” at the Lincoln Center Theater
May 2018
By
Drew Kopf
I was telling a young person (in their early 30’s) that we were going to be seeing the musical comedy “My Fair Lady” at the Lincoln Center Theater and he told me he had never heard of it; what was it about?
I took a few minutes to outline for the young man how this very stuffy upper-class Englishman, who was a Professor of Phonetics, bets this Internationally known colleague in the same field just back from India (pronounced INJA), that he could teach a young woman who they encounter in the street selling flowers; a very low class young woman we should add, whose speech pattern labels her as uneducated and with zero prospects in life beyond what she was doing right there; selling flowers. The Professor bets that he could teach her how to speak well enough to be able to pass her off as a member of the upper-class to where they would think that she was one of them.
The unthinkable happens when the Flower Girl shows up unannounced at the Professor’s home, a fancy mansion in the best part of town where he has a full staff of hot and cold running servants and a full time housekeeper.
The flower girl is a willing participant in the “bet” seeing it as giving her a chance to better herself; perhaps to sell flowers in a proper flower shop like a real business person and not have to suffer the trials and tribulations of the street with its rough if not down right dangerous types all over, the very changeable weather and the need to depend on the generosity of strangers to buy her flowers in sufficient quantities for her to make a living.
The bet is struck and the girl moves into the mansion and the “teaching” begins in earnest. But, what neither the flower girl nor the Professor counts on is that as she learns and as he teaches her how to speak the Queen’s English to where she sounds like the real thing, they both reveal things about themselves to where he sees how devoted and tenacious she can be about something she believes is important and see sees through and around his brusque and uncaring façade and ways of conducting himself that he is the consummate professional who ultimately values perfection and wants what he wants when he wants it; the ivory tower type. That is until he faced with what might be considered the decision of a lifetime.
And that happens when the one thing neither the Professor nor the flower girl ever even considered could happen happens; they fall in love with one another.
Man plans and G-d laughs.
The Professor struggles to maintain his aloofness and she wants to be appreciated and valued for all she is which includes being quick thinking and the owner of a vivacious and irresistible personality. The immovable object meets the irresistible force. What they least expect happened when the y fall in love with one another. The most unlikely thing to happen in all of the British Empire happens. Amazing.
Wow! The young man says. This “My Fair lady” is something I want to learn more about.
I sign off by telling him the music is absolutely delightful and will be something he will remember for the rest of his life.
Let’s face it, if you have a terrific orchestra, you are well on you way to staging a fabulous production of “My Fair Lady.” The Lincoln Center Theater’s current production of “My Fair Lady” has a spot on perfect orchestra under the baton of Music Director Ted Sperling. The Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner are perfectly married to the Music by Fredrick Lowe and has been so for sixty plus years. The play’s concept finds its roots of course in the play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, which has been a favorite romantic comedy since 1913. It tells of a Greek god who falls in love with one of his own statues, which then, amazingly, comes to life.
The cast in this current production does about everything that could be done to help move the story forward for the audience using the dialogue, the lyrics and music along with delightful and elegant and, at times, down right beautiful dance numbers by Trude Rittmann that catapult this theater experience to where the New York City theater audience expects it to reach; out of sight.
Laureen Ambrose (Eliza Doolittle) creates the character with great care, which allows her the latitude to carve out the necessary morphing from lowly flower girl on the London streets to the elegant “Lady” who, in fact, she really is and has been all the time. Perfect, right? Well, not 100%. But, there is evidence that what is missing in her performance is due to others, who are what might doing what might be referred to as pulling her strings. The “magical” and “romantic” connection between Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgans played by Harry Hadden-Patow just is simple nowhere in evidence. Not in this production anyway.
The sets are a bit of alright! They move in and out of the thrust stage of the Lincoln Center Theater with hardly any negative impact on the clay’s continuity. There may be a piece where the set is allowed to become “almost” more interesting than the actors moving around, on and through it as it is rotated on its turntable. But, that has nothing to do with anybody but the main string puller who does not allow the romantic sparks to fly between Liza and Professor Higgans in complete counter distinction to the play as written.
Norbert Leo Butz (Alfred P. Doolittle) delivers a performance beyond the call of duty. Energy without measure, a joy about life we all want to see, or, should we say we all want to have, timing that is absolutely impeccable. In a way, he steals the show. Why? Because the main characters are so reigned in by the “string-puller-in-chief,” the character of Alfred P. Doolittle becomes more interesting if not actually more important than our two protagonists, Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgins, who go though the motions and say all the words, but, with no apparent purpose. It is as if their emotions have been neutralized.
Mr. Hadden-Paton creates the Professor character for us and handles the songs he has with a passion for detail; each word, no – each syllable gets squeezed to help make his message to us be more than just communicated; they are driven home so that we absolutely get it. That is why we are so shocked that his character, Professor Henry Higgins, who, in the story, falls in love with Eliza Doolittle, is held back, as if by someone holding him on a leash, and prevents him from his “love for Eliza” to be seen. The net effect is to leave his performance somewhat hollow since the very heart of the play – the romantic part – has been almost completely cut out of his character and, thereby, from the entire play.
The lighting by Donald Holder is magical at times. Bravo! The Costumes by Catherine Zuber are authentic and help weave the entire look of the show together. The Sound is not just OK. At one point it becomes the thundering field of thoroughbred race horses that charge full tilt down the race track to the finish line and as “hokey” as one might think it would be, it works and works well non-the-less.
Jordan Donia (Freddy Eynsford-Hill) does a very nice job with “on the Street Where You Live,” which is a delightful love song and that he renders in a rather challenging set of surroundings. The set gives him one street lamp, a huge stately house where Eliza is staying now upstage left and the audience. He never or maybe very rarely falls prey to “indicating” to try to fill the time as he sings his heart out. Mr. Donia’s voice is beautiful, which helps a lot. Was there anything else for him to do other than to face the audience and concert-ize? Perhaps. But, whoever let him suffer like that out there; because it has to hurt to just sing when an actor wants to be “acting” as well, seems to have said, “So what.” Or, “Who cares?”
Don’t get us wrong. We liked the show. We loved the music and the lyrics and much of the physicalization and a good deal of the acting. The trouble with this production of “My Fair Lady” should not keep anyone from seeing it because the music, the songs and the mounting of it works. The only thing that is missing is the all important element that gives a romantic comedy its strength, its driving force and its very reason for being – there is no romance. At the very end of the play, some absolutely ridiculous hard hearted overreaching and ruinous demands by Mr. Bartlett Sher, the Director, but here he ought to be called the Dictator, because he clearly forces the actors to stab the lovely ending of the play right in the heart with a knife by having Eliza walk out on Henry Higgins, the man with whom she has fallen in love, and he (Mr. Sher) has Henry Higgins do and say nothing to stop her. That is not at all the play that was written by Lerner and Lowe and originally penned by George Bernard Shaw because they all knew that this most unlikely couple, Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, eventually will lean towards love and would be willing to take their chances even though she is a woman and he is a man and they are so completely opposite one from the other.
Mr. Sher thinks he knows better than Mr. Lerner and Mr. Shaw so he rewrites the ending to update the play and, in doing so, ruins a perfectly beautiful production for all who came to see the Lerner and Lowe “My Fair Lady” and not the one Mr. Sher chooses to give us. If Mr. Sher wants to do it his way, he ought to go out and write his own play and leave the masterful work of Lerner and Lowe the way it was intended to be presented; i.e. a romantic comedy heavy on the romance. You want to direct Mr. Sher; then direct. You want to write plays Mr. Sher; then write plays. Make up your mind. But, stop destroying perfectly crafted plays the way you messed up “My Fair Lady.” And the real sad part of it is that you, Mr. Sher, you missed the funny part. Romantic Comedy. Not only did you screw things up by removing the romance but you missed the funny part to boot. No body would ever put one Eliza Doolittle together with a Professor Henry Higgins. It is madness and crazy. It’s laughable. That is why we titled this piece, Man Plans and God Laughs. You missed the funny part.
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