MY FAIR LADY (2018) Previews- Page 15

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 9:34am

GeorgeandDot said: "I can tell all of you are men based upon the fact that you think a woman returning to her abuser is romantic, happy, and satisfying."

The fact that somebody even decided that Eliza not going back to Higgins in the end was her being ungrateful for all that he did for her and that she abandoned him was so telling as well. Basically because he taught her how to speak and proper etiquette as to not embarrass herself in social circles (something she was ready to pay for herself before the experiment gone wild) she did not grow up in, she should lose all autonomy and freedom and devote her entire existence to him.

Now we have it being unfeminist that Eliza doesn't continue the experiment by not continuing to play a role she does not even want. In the beginning all she wanted was to learn how to speak a bit better so she could work in a flower shop and make her own wage in a better environment than selling flowers on the street, not that she wasn't proud of being a flower girl on the street but it's natural she'd want an opportunity to make more money. She never seem inclined to join the higher classes where she could no longer work to make a living and instead has to marry for her future economic prospects as so many ladies had to do due to lack of choice. Her marrying a man like Freddy may not be popular but it is her choice and it's not an ignorant choice as Eliza recognizes that he wasn't brought up to work and she's happy to support him just like a man would have to support her if she decided to be a lady and thus be dependent on her husband.

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 09:34 AM

[MCfan2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 9:40am

ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "GeorgeandDot said: "I can tell all of you are men based upon the fact that you think a woman returning to her abuser is romantic, happy, and satisfying."

The fact that somebody even decided that Eliza not going back to Higgins in the end was her being ungrateful for all that he did for her and that she abandoned him was so telling as well. Basically because he taught her how to speak and proper etiquette as to not embarrass herself in social circles (something she was ready to pay for herself before the experiment gone wild) she did not grow up in, she should lose all autonomy and freedom and devote her entire existence to him.

Now we have it being unfeminist that Eliza doesn't continue the experiment by not continuing to play a role she does not even want. In the beginning all she wanted was to learn how to speak a bit better so she could work in a flower shop and make her own wage in a better environment than selling flowers on the street, not that she wasn't proud of being a flower girl on the street but it's natural she'd want an opportunity to make more money. She never seem inclined to join the higher classes where she could no longer work to make a living and instead has to marry for her future economic prospects as so many ladies had to do due to lack of choice. Her marrying a man like Freddy may not be popular but it is her choice and it's not an ignorant choice as Eliza recognizes that he wasn't brought up to work and she's happy to support him just like a man would have to support her if she decided to be a lady and thus be dependent on her husband."

And in the original MFL ending, it is her choice to come back to Higgins again, and it's not an ignorant choice, as we've seen that she knows exactly who he is and what their relationship has been and how he would have to change before it could continue.

 

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 9:44am

I'm a man.

I see value, truth and insight in both Shaw's ending, whether in PYGMALION or MY FAIR LADY, and the 1937 screenplay/Lerner ending.  Either can work brilliantly, with the right direction, whether in PYGMALION or MY FAIR LADY. 

There is so much core commonality between PYGMALION and MY FAIR LADY that the alternative endings can suit both the "straight" and "musical" variations of this story.

Much of this has to do with the fact that I find neither one of the resolutions "prescriptive." Just as neither is all tied up with all questions answered.  Ambiguity reigns in both.

What either ending is is a recognizable piece of life, each illuminating on all the themes Shaw has placed before us.   

Henry left alone without Eliza, overly sure of himself that she will come back, OR Eliza facing the bond she feels for Henry and returning, perhaps out of curiosity, or a need to know if he might be as changed as she is, with us wondering what that return might ultimately mean for both of them - both of these endings are robust and compelling.   Both make us feel for these characters and their fates.  Both can work with the right directions.  Both have strong dramatic value.

I am very much looking forward to seeing the current revival next month.

But to criticize interpolating the Shaw ending on to MY FAIR LADY as intrinsically untrue to the work.... no, I don't buy that at all.  No more than I buy the notion that altering the ending of PYGMALION for the 1937 movie or the 1958 musical hit was intrinsically untrue to PYGMALION.

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 9:50am

MCfan2, I'm sorry, but just because he doesn't treat anyone else better than her or because she doesn't recognize immediately that he's abusing her doesn't mean that he isn't abusive. He is abusive. Sure he helps her, but tortures her the entire time and treats her like garbage. The end of My Fair Lady is terrible. I'm sorry, but it is.
Lerner may have been a great writer, but he sure as hell wasn't Shaw and the fact that he thought he could "fix" Pygmalion is absolutely absurd to me.

As a woman, the end of MFL is tragic. Eliza has so much promise and ambition and she throws it all away at the end for a man who abuses her. This new production has a happy ending to me. Eliza goes off to lead a great life. Maybe as a wife to a spineless, but also kind man or, even better, as the owner of a flower shop. Maybe even both. All while Higgins realizes the error of his ways even if maybe it's too late. It's a much better ending that would make Shaw, ya know one of the greatest playwrights ever, proud.

Also, My Fair Lady and Pygmalion have always been political. Don't act like this is news. It's always been more than just a fluffy musical comedy.

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 09:50 AM

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 9:59am

Since Ibsen was brought up, here is one interesting quote from Shaw in a letter to theatre critic and champion of both Ibsen and Shaw William Archer:

"Ibsen was compelled to acquiesce in a happy ending for A Doll's House in Berlin, because he could not help himself [my note: because Ibsen felt pressured to and many productions refused to do the play with the original ending because it was so shocking at the time], just as I have never been able to stop the silly and vulgar gag with which Eliza in Pygmalion, both here and abroad, gets the last word and implies that she is going to marry Pygmalion. But would you therefore play A Doll's House in Jones's Breaking a Butterfly version, or allow Eliza to gag in a production of Pygmalion for which you were responsible? "

Imagine people today arguing that A Doll's House should have a happy ending for Torvald and Nora no matter how compelling the actor playing Torvald is in the final act of the play where's pleading and begging Nora to stay.

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 09:59 AM

[MCfan2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:16am

GeorgeandDot said: "As a woman, the end of MFL is tragic. Eliza has so much promise and ambition and she throws it all away at the end for a man who abuses her. This new production has a happy ending to me. Eliza goes off to lead a great life. Maybe as a wife to a spineless, but also kind man or, even better, as the owner of a flower shop. Maybe even both. All while Higgins realizes the error of his ways even if maybe it's too late. It's a much better ending that would make Shaw, ya know one of the greatest playwrights ever, proud."

I'm a woman too, and I think being married to a spineless drip would be a thousand times worse than ending up with a remorseful and reforming Higgins.

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:20am

Is he remorseful though? I don't remember an "I'm sorry" being uttered. On the other hand, Feddy treats her kindly and loves her and writes her poems and what not. Higgins asks for his slippers. He's not sorry for what he did to her. He's sorry that he lost her. There's a difference.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:26am

I think being brought in and "bettered" by a self-interested misogynist as an experiment and a bet is kind of a dealbreaker, no matter how much he may come to see me as human being and a peer, the lowest bar of human decency.

But hey, that's just me!

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 10:26 AM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:27am

Is Freddy a spineless drip? Henry sees him that way. But does Eliza? Should we?

And how much of such a judgment is sexist? If Freddy has no ambition, if he is “just” a sweet, infatuated simple gentle pretty kind man, does that make him less appealing than 99% of the women men fall for in 19th or early 20th fiction? And if so, why? If not because he is a man?

When you really think about it, wouldn’t Freddy’s continued devotion to Eliza, even having discovered where she comes from and her poverty, rather than instead seeking some “social climbing heiress from New York” (much less a Hungarian royal), suggest that rather.than being some spineless drip, Freddy is indeed a remarkable example of a genteel penniless Edwardian aristocrat. Even perhaps an impressively good sort of man. 

But all that is beside the point. As in no version of the play is it the least certain that Eliza ends up marrying Freddy.

 

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 10:27 AM

[MCfan2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:32am

If Freddie were a woman, I'd still think she was a spineless drip. Good-natured, sure, but still a spineless drip. 

[enjoyable2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:34am

I always heard I Could Have Danced All Night as a romantic song in which the key line was, "I only know when he began to dance with me," etc.  But reading these comments, I realized that perhaps the key line is, "I could have spread my wings and done a thousand things I've never done before."  I won't be able to see this production but I suspect I would love it based on the comments and the ending. 

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:46am

I Could Have Danced All Night isn't really a love song to me, but rather a song about feeling like a human being for the first time. A man danced with her. That's the point. Not that she danced with Higgins and yes that certainly is the line that we should focus on in that song.

[enjoyable2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:51am

Love your thoughts on this. Thanks!

[Elfuhbuh]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 10:55am

I’m honestly fine with either ending. On the one hand, the original Pygmalion has Higgins set in stone and stubbornly unwilling to change his ways, and it makes sense for Eliza to leave him, but on the other hand, MFL has that moment of Higgins listening to the old recording and, I guess depending on the production, visibly feeling ashamed of the way he acted. If you want to, it’s easy to imagine that he tries to change his ways after Eliza returns.

Plus, how do we know that Eliza returning means she can’t open up her flower shop or enter society the way she wants to? The ending to MFL is so ambiguous that you can pretty much make up what happens next in whichever way you like, and I think that was always the point.

(I say all this as a woman, by the way.)

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 11:41am

I haven’t seen this production, but I’m looking forward to seeing Sher’s work. However, I am a little weary that they have completely ignored Lerner’s intentions. I mean, in the first page of the script, he points out why the ending pairs Eliza and Higgins together. If I wanted to see the ending where Eliza doesn’t return and the orchestra swells with “I Could Have Danced All Night”, I would have seen Pygmalion, not My Fair Lady.

Are we going to change the ending of “A Streetcar Named Desire” so Stella turns Stanley into the police and Blanche is cured of her mental illness?

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 11:46am

I mean did Tennessee Williams intend that and was there a musical version that changed it and then a revival that went closer to Williams' intention of his original work even though they kept the scene and dialogue pretty much the same as the musical adaptation? I guess the movie version is sort of close in that they made Stella turn her back on Stanley in the end in a way that I don't think was in the original play.

I mean Streetcar can remain the same because it's pretty much a tragedy for Blanche so there's no need to change the ending for modern sensibilities unless we're supposed to take Stanley's side and we all somehow missed that for the past half century plus. I mean unless Lerner meant for us to take Eliza coming back to Higgins' study at the end of MFL as a tragedy, then this analogy is just forced.

I think some of us who responded positively to the ending probably over-did it in praising it for being closer to Shaw's original when it's actually just as ambiguous as the original Lerner ending. It's not the same as Higgins laughing and saying "Marry Freddy?" and then having the curtain fall, so it's still open ended to a happy ending if you want to think they end up together. It's just not as right away as it was in the original staging.

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 11:46 AM

[Ravenclaw]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 11:49am

henrikegerman said: "Is Freddy a spineless drip? Henry sees him that way. But does Eliza? Should we?

And how much of such a judgment is sexist? If Freddy has no ambition, if he is “just” a sweet, infatuated simple gentle pretty kind man, does that make him less appealing than 99% of the women men fall for in 19th or early 20thfiction? And if so, why? If not because he is a man?

When you really think about it, wouldn’t Freddy’s continued devotion to Eliza, even having discovered where she comes from and her poverty, rather than instead seeking some “social climbing heiress from New York” (much less a Hungarian royal),suggest that rather.than being some spineless drip, Freddy is indeed aremarkable example of a genteel penniless Edwardian aristocrat. Even perhapsan impressively good sort of man.

But all that is beside the point. As in no version of the play is it the least certain that Eliza ends up marrying Freddy."

I second this. Let's remember what wishes Eliza expresses in her big "I want" song:

"Someone's head resting on my knee/warm and tender as he can be/who takes good care of me/oh, wouldn't it be loverly?"

Sounds more like Freddy than Henry, doesn't it? Shaw himself said that Eliza and Henry would never be compatible because their personalities and prides are both so huge that they would swallow the other one up. Freddy respects and cares for her. What makes you think that he's so spineless?

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 11:51am

Sally, you're reaching, hun.

Lerner clearly had no respect for Shaw's ending, so why should we have any respect for his, especially considering how disgusting and unintentionally tragic it is?

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 11:52am

Ravenclaw said: "henrikegerman said: "Is Freddy a spineless drip? Henry sees him that way. But does Eliza? Should we?

And how much of such a judgment is sexist? If Freddy has no ambition, if he is “just” a sweet, infatuated simple gentle pretty kind man, does that make him less appealing than 99% of the women men fall for in 19th or early 20thfiction? And if so, why? If not because he is a man?

When you really think about it, wouldn’t Freddy’s continued devotion to Eliza, even having discovered where she comes from and her poverty, rather than instead seeking some “social climbing heiress from New York” (much less a Hungarian royal),suggest that rather.than being some spineless drip, Freddy is indeed aremarkable example of a genteel penniless Edwardian aristocrat. Even perhapsan impressively good sort of man.

But all that is beside the point. As in no version of the play is it the least certain that Eliza ends up marrying Freddy."

I second this. Let's remember what wishes Eliza expresses in her big "I want" song:

"Someone's head resting on my knee/warm and tender as he can be/who takes good care of me/oh, wouldn't it be loverly?"

Sounds more like Freddy than Henry, doesn't it? Shaw himself said that Eliza and Henry would never be compatible because their personalities and prides are both so huge that they would swallow the other one up. Freddy respects and cares for her. What makes you think that he's so spineless?"

Great point and citation to "Loverly". Eliza probably didn't have a lot of warmth or affection growing up, look at her relationship with her father, and she probably sees Freddy as offering that (and boy does he) even if he can't really offer anything tangible for her, which she explicitly states she's fine with since she's used to working and was brought up to it unlike him. She probably sees in Freddy a type of romanticism and warmth that she yearns for and is willing to work extra hard to have it and accepts Freddy for his limitations and he accepts Eliza wholeheartedly and wouldn't dream of hurting her (though of course people can still hurt people even if they don't want to). I think the real issue is that some people would rather marry Higgins themselves than Freddy and can't understand why Eliza would do the opposite.

I do think there's been a lot of stories and BBC adaptations/tv projects where a hard working girl marries a good looking man of a higher class who at first offers love and devotion and to reject his prospects for her and ends up just being a bum and being no good for the heroine and even almost financially ruining her that it's easy to project that into Freddy but we have to remember these are different characters and according to Shaw Eliza and Freddy have a different ending than those other stories.

Anyway, back to Sher's actual production, there's nothing really there to say who Eliza ends up with...if she ends up with anybody.

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 11:52 AM

[enjoyable2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 12:02pm

Great point. And loving, kind, gentle men are most definitely NOT spineless. In fact, they may be the most heroic of all.  But people like HH would see them as a threat. 

[Ravenclaw]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 12:16pm

Eliza's main goal (her "super-objective," for you actor-types) is not to be rich (lest we forget, "All I want is a room somewhere..." but to have a stable life, feeling heard and respected. Freddy provides her much more respect than Higgins ever did, and Eliza is willing and wanting to work for a living. Recall:

Eliza: I'll marry Freddy, I will, as soon as I'm able to support him.

Higgins: Freddy!! That poor devil who couldn't get a job as an errand boy even if he had the guts to try for it! Woman, do you not understand? I have made you consort for a king!

Eliza: Freddy loves me: that makes him king enough for me. I don't want him to work: he wasn't brought up to it as I was.

[carnzee]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 12:32pm

I like Shaw's thoughts on what happens after Pygmalion ends: Eliza and Higgins become equals and sparring partners in a platonic friendship.

I just wish he had actually written that in the play. What My Fair Lady needs is one brief final scene, a la Gypsy, where after he says "Where the devil are my slippers?" they come to terms and start a new chapter in their relationship, this time as friends who see each other as equals. That way, Eliza's return would not be misconstrued as a capitulation.

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 1:03pm

GeorgeandDot said: "Sally, you're reaching, hun.

Lerner clearly had no respect for Shaw's ending, so why should we have any respect for his, especially considering how disgusting and unintentionally tragic it is?"

I wish people would stop spouting off without getting their facts straight. Lerner lifted the entire ending lines from the movie Pygmalion, whose screenplay Shaw wrote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTOdzk3y0VM

Watch it. Line for line it's the same. 

[GeorgeandDot]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 1:13pm

If you really want to get the facts straight you would do some research and realize that the final scene in that film was not written by Shaw and was written against his will. So while perhaps it isn't entirely Lerner's ending, it certainly was NOT written by Shaw.  He gave them a different final scene that ended with Eliza and Freddy happily married in a flower shop, but they opted for the ending we see in the clip above, which was not what Shaw wanted or wrote.

Actually, in response to seeing a production of Pygmalion with an added "happy" ending between Higgins and Eliza, Shaw told the director "Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot."

Updated On: 3/19/18 at 01:13 PM

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 3/19/18 at 1:19pm

^That's not what you said.

GeorgeandDot said: "Sally, you're reaching, hun.

Lerner clearly had no respect for Shaw's ending, so why should we have any respect for his, especially considering how disgusting and unintentionally tragic it is?"

You implied Lerner concocted this romantic ending out of thin air. That's not what happened at all. Lerner lifted the lines straight from the movie. Actually Lerner lifted most of MFL's book scenes straight from the movie.