REVIEW: Fair Lady, Flawed by Faulty Sound

The premise of “My Fair Lady” (at Wharton Center until March 1) is still provocative.  If you change the way she speaks (walks and eats), can you transform a poor flower girl to an upper-class society lady?

Although the play takes place in 1912, the idea still rings true today.  The crux of the show is the constant fun being played with language. The wonderful song “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” is a veritable word puzzle we try to solve: What is Eliza actually singing, in her strong cockney accent?

I especially enjoy the line “Oh, so lovely sittin’, abso-bloomin-lutely still, I would never budge till spring, crept over me windowsill.”

This is a show that turns on language, puns and words.  And the only way to make it all work is having a sound system that is clear and crisp so the audience can hear all the jokes.  From my seats at Wharton (row G, orchestra left), things sounded garbled combined with an echo.

In one critical scene, Ascot Gavotte, when the uptight aristocrats would not allow themselves to even raise an eyebrow during the horse race, our Eliza bellowed out “Move your bloomin’ arse!”. It’s usually one of the biggest laughs of the show.  On opening night, it merely elicited a chuckle since few people understood what she was saying.

Despite the sound flaws, which I trust were not as bad in other seats in the Great Hall, this touring production was first class.

The costumes received a Tony award and indeed they were splendid. And so was the cast.

Laird Mackintosh, as the curmudgeon Professor Higgins whose goal was to lift Eliza “out of the gutter”, was superb.  He bounded around the set with great energy, sang wonderfully and evolved from cockiness to confusion with ease.

Shereen Ahmed, as Eliza, had the most difficult role.  Her entire personality, accent and character changed dramatically from the beginning to the end of the show.  She was charming and feisty and acted with her entire body. Ahmed had a warm soprano voice but lacked the power for the final showdown with Prof. Higgins.

The chorus was impressive, especially the four men who made up the “loverly quartet”.  They were like an English-style barbershop quartet and added much to the scene.

The ultimate star of the show, however, was the set.  It was a massive turntable that displayed the front part of Higgins’ house, his elaborate study, the garden and the bath.  When it twirled endlessly to demonstrate the passage of time, characters were scampering up and down stairwells, running through doors connecting one side of the house to the other, all the while changing costumes.  It was truly a spectacular piece of stagecraft.

And the songs: After all these years (64 to be exact), the inspired and clever lyrics matched with gorgeous music still remain as great as we remember. There was much talk about the changes that tweaked the end of the play to make it more agreeable to current sensibilities, but little was actually altered.  It is what it is.

But, happily, “My Fair Lady” remains one of the masterpieces of American musical theater.