My Fair Lady is a delightful old-fashioned musical chock-a-block with memorable characters, music, songs, lush costumes, clever sets, and more.

Thousands of Performances

My Fair Lady is a delightful old-fashioned musical chock-a-block with memorable characters, music, songs, lush costumes, clever sets, and witty, often biting dialogue. The show now at Shea’s about the Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who desires to become a lady and seeks the help of the famous linguist, Professor Henry Higgins, does not disappoint in its faithfulness to the original Broadway production, with a few modern changes, as in its color-blind casting and a bit of ambiguity where in the past none existed.

Based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, it was first produced on Broadway in 1956 starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, with Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and Music by Frederick Loewe. It won six Tony awards, including Best Musical, and ran for 2,717 performances, which was a record for the time. The 1964 film, which won the Oscar for Best Musical, while very popular, was controversial for its replacement of Julie Andrews for the more well-known-at-the-time Audrey Hepburn as Eliza, whose voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon (who also dubbed Natalie Wood’s Maria in the 1961 film of West Side Story. Ms. Nixon was quite a busy woman at that time).

And Counting

There certainly is no dubbing in this production. Shereen Ahmed as Eliza has a voice that soars to the rafters, with acting and dancing chops to boot. From her plaintive Wouldn’t It Be Loverly? to the lilting, romantic I Could Have Danced All Night, and the frustrated and angry Without You, she hits all the right notes, as does Laird Mackintosh as the loud and obnoxious Henry Higgins. He does not miss a beat in his lengthy diatribes, whether against the British class system that determines a person’s worth by their forms of speech (Shaw’s social commentary here), or at Eliza for her stubbornness and refusal to knuckle under to him. One can delight in his clueless narcissism as he sings, I’m an Ordinary Man, his genuine perplexity in A Hymn to Him, and his awakening realization of his attachment to Eliza in I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face. They are both superb in their roles.

The supporting cast and ensemble are all up to the task, including Kevin Pariseau as the kind Colonel Pickering and Gayton Scott as the bemused housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, as well as Martin P. Fisher as Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza’s deadbeat philosopher father, and Sam Simahk as the smitten Freddy Eynsford-Hill.

The Ascot Gavotte by the company dressed in their gorgeous finery for the opening of the races are perfect in their British upper-class-who-show-no- emotion-and-keep-a-stiff-upper-lip-under-all-circumstances attitude. This is great fun as the attendees slowly move their heads in unison while the horses run around the track.

Practically Perfect in Every Way

A glitch in moving the set on its turntable on opening night was quickly fixed, and it was back to the business of entertaining an enthusiastic crowd, most of whom could sing along to the well-known songs, but thankfully did not. If you have never seen a theatrical production of My Fair Lady, this is the one for you.

I could go on and on, but if you have read this far, you most likely get the drift that this My Fair Lady is practically perfect in every way. Hmmm – where did that phrase come from? Get thee to the theater on time, and see this charming and very enjoyable production.