Review of My Fair Lady    by Dennis Thompson

Weathervane Playhouse is opening their summer season with an excellent production of the classic Lerner and Loewe musical, My Fair Lady.

  The famed musical with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe is based on George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion.”  The original Broadway production won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1956 and starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. The 1964 film featured Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.

The story involves the attempts of Professor Henry Higgins to pass off Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, as a lady by giving her speech lessons.

This was different from many musicals of the time, the main plot did not revolve around a love story.  There remain small oddities, a potential love interest is tossed in for Eliza – even given one of the more famous songs – then disappears with barely a mention.

The show contains several famous numbers including “Wouldn’t it be Loverly?,” “With a Little Bit of Luck,” ”The Rain in Spain,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face.”

This is a first rate production, from Mark DeLancey’s beautiful set to Derek Whitener’s costumes, shabby to dazzling as called for. The singing is delightful, both with solos and in harmonic group numbers.

Musical Director Judy Rauch is center stage, sharing a pair of pianos with Cheridy Keller, in providing the accompaniment.  One might think the prominent piano placement would be disconcerting, but they blend right in.

Mark Mann is so ideal as the self centered, pompous Henry Higgins one wonders what he is like to live with.  We decide to chalk this up to fine acting.

Using the voice and presence he has conveyed in countless Shakespearean roles, Mann conveys authoritative intelligence. His Higgins is abrasive, emphatic, bombastic and occasionally downright mean.  Yet he is still a character we like.  Higgins says the most outrageous things, totally oblivious to the effect on others.  But Mann humanizes him.  When he softens, it is just for rare moments, then he is back again.  His character never compromises.

Harrison so famously “talked” his songs that it seems expected of this role now.  While I think Higgins could sing, Mann does the “talk-sing,” an occasional melodic note blended into a rhythmic spoken flow.  It works and becomes another aspect of the character, as if Higgins can’t be bothered to actually sing.

Kirsten Flaglor is equally compelling as Eliza Doolittle.  Vocally, she effortlessly shifts from cockney brogue to mannered enunciation. Physically, she masters both the rough carriage of the flower girl and the elegant grace following transformation.  Flaglor takes Eliza from caricature to a woman with new found feelings and a growing sense of self.  She sings her numbers with a strong and beautiful voice.

Dennis Kohler is kindly and intelligent as Colonel Pickering, with just the right comic touch of absent minded professor. Long time Weathervane favorite Ellie Unger is delightfully outrageous and charming as Mrs. Higgins.

Rick Fields is roguishly charismatic as Alfred P. Doolittle, commanding the stage at each appearance.

The cast is strong throughout, group scenes of low life roughhousing and high society posturing are played equally well.

Director and Choreographer Erika Twining stages this wonderfully, attending to the group numbers and the intimate ones.  She inserts comic bits, such as Higgins dealing with the dirt on a chair and the group snobbery of the upper crust watching a horse race.

At three hours running time, this is a long evening, but an extremely enjoyable one.

Part of the intent in giving me this space on the Roundtable website was to have some member companies reviewed that may not have normally been covered.  In my previous newspaper life, I was as guilty of not covering everyone as the rest of my fellow critics.  In our defense, there is so much theatre in the central Ohio area it is impossible to cover every production of every company.     

But in seeking out Roundtable members I have found new companies, ones I haven’t covered for years and ones I’ve never covered.  Weathervane is the latter, I was aware of their existence but had never seen them.  I was pleasantly surprised.

From their facilities to their production elements to their casting, if this production is indicative of their norm, this is a professional quality theatre company.

Weathervane Playhouse’s My Fair Lady continues Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Saturday at 2 pm through June 12^th at the Weathervane Playhouse, 100 Price Road, Newark.  Tickets are $25, $23 for students and seniors.  Matinee is $20/$18. For more information call 740-366-4616 or online at www.weathervaneplayhouse.org