MY FAIR LADY (2018) Previews — Page 7

WhizzerMarvin said: "Yes, the line is changed on the telephone call. He says her hair is red instead of brown. I assume if the understudy is blonde or brunette, then the color will change again.

Yes, she comes in, does the phonograph bit- all exactly word for word as in the script.

Loved your post, Ravenclaw. I think you have the right attitude with how the ending should be approached."

Thanks for sharing so many details! My Fair Lady is my favorite musical of all time, and I am thrilled to hear that it is getting such a great production by Bart Sher, my favorite director working today. May can't come soon enough!

I'm also glad to hear that the production doesn't shy away from Higgins's verbal abuse. One of my big problems with last year's production at the Lyric Opera in Chicago was that Higgins was played as an entirely unthreatening, whiny little child. While I understood wanting to focus on Higgins's immaturity, making the story a sort of late in life coming of age, if Eliza isn't under any great threat, the tension is sucked out of the piece and the incredible moments in which she finds her dignity and stands her ground are robbed of their power.

At the risk of asking too much, the stage directions in the script suggest that Henry handles Eliza roughly in their fight at the top of Act II. How is that handled? I've seen it staged so many different ways. Eliza has a line where she says "Please don't hit me!" and Higgins responds, "Hit you? How dare you accuse me of such a thing!" That moment in particular can be staged in so many ways. The verbal abuse is the thing driving the plot, but nature of/existence of the physical abuse is entirely up to the director to figure out.

Thanks everyone for the reports! Wish I could see this production. I like the sound of that ending. It reminds me a bit of...
(Possible implicit ending staging spoilers?)

When I first saw the film of 'My Fair Lady' as a kid with my parents, I was very bothered and bewildered by Eliza returning to Higgins at the end. My parents placated me by saying "Erm, she probably left again after that, and married Freddy." I don't know if they knew the original Pygmalion ending, but regardless, I still like 'their' ending better than the film's.

After Eight, sorry there were no children singing about tea and jam and bread, but hey at least you got one with chocolate!

Updated On: 3/16/18 at 04:25 AM

Just because someone pulls the plug on a relationship today- does not mean a reconciliation is not possible tomorrow- c'mon- how many times have we all been in relationships where the push and pull - and break ups- have been present- and yet the relationship still resumes- my self- my partner of 22 years and I broke up three times before we came back together for good. Eliza showing her independence a the end does not necessarily take away the ambiguity of resuming the relationship in the future- I see it April 1- will write about it after I see it.

iqolbinau said: "So let me understand - Higgins, as immature, condescending, annoying and possibly sexist as he might be - takes a poor, uneducated person off the street and helps her make her way. Then as thanks she takes everything he gave her and leaves him to rot away by himself? What kind of ending is that? It seems to change the tone of the ending completely from something more complex and ambiguous to something rather sad and depressing."

It's George Bernard Shaw's ending. The tone of which was previously famously and not without controversy altered. And has now it seems changed back to conform to Shaw's original intention and imprecations that no version of his play should ever suggest that Eliza returns to Henry (notwithstanding that he himself is credited as co-author of the 1938 screenplay of PYGMALION, for which he shared an Oscar, and which Lerner's ending for MY FAIR LADY mirrors).

Ironically, what we apparently have now is a relative faithfulness to Shaw which is here being decried by some as iconoclasm to Lerner whose libretto had in turn been objected to for disloyalty to Shaw.

So whose view, the pro or the con to Sher's ending, is the most "conservative" or "preservationsit' here? Controversy is a lengthy visitor with long term memory loss.

Updated On: 3/16/18 at 08:16 AM

I don't like the sound of that ending at all. If I wanted to see Pygmalion, I'd go see Pygmalion. (Incidentally, it wasn't L/L who came up with the MFL ending. It happened long before that, in the movie version of Pygmalion, and even before that when Mrs. Campbell insisted on subverting Shaw -- which I think was rather Eliza-like of her.)

I always took the traditional MFL ending to mean that now that she's shown him the error of his ways, they can have a relationship on HER terms. I still prefer it that way. Doesn't mean I won't enjoy the rest of the show, but that's how I feel.

And Freddie is such a drip that no woman of spirit and intelligence should ever marry him. It'd be a living death.

ETA: However, if she really does do the phonograph bit -- that's better than not coming back at all. That seems to leave room for a touch of ambiguity and hope, perhaps.

Updated On: 3/16/18 at 09:12 AM

You see how much more of a discussion this has caused than if Sher didn't take a strong stand with the ending as opposed to the wishy washy ending the film version ending that Lerner/Lowe adopted that allowed the audience to project their own version of a happy ending onto it? Even Eliza in MFL says she doesn't want Higgins as a lover because their relationship was more "friendly-like". What she liked with Higgins was the intellectual stimulation and the friendship that sort of inadvertently happened between them and this ending does not change that. She and he have mutual acquaintances now (though still of different social standing in Britain's much more rigid class system) and Col. Pickering will probably still be in her life so I doubt that's the last time Eliza and Higgins interact with one another, it just won't be with her living at his home and doing his bidding anymore. Now she's her own separate entity and the power dynamic between the two has changed. This whole thing was written as a criticism of class distinction and having this production show the audience that Eliza has taken action to be of more equal footing with Higgins outside of his control fits that.

AE, you're whole complaint here seems to be reaching to the highest degree considering one cannot fully separate Pygmalion from My Fair Lady the way you are. It's not as if Lerner/Lowe adopted a fully romantic resolution between Higgins and Eliza either because if they did they would have made the ending less ambiguous and less of an attempt to please both sides of the debate. If it makes you feel better, one can still take this ending and imagine Eliza and Higgins continuing their Sam/Diane routine with the only difference being Eliza not living with Higgins to fetch his slippers. Even Lerner/Lowe's and the Howard/Hiller film don't make it clear she was going to do that and continue to live with him and it's really up to you as an audience member to make that leap and if that's the case then you can still make a leap and imagine an ending where Higgins and Eliza reconcile later on and continue whatever relationship it is you're imagining the ending of MFL gave.

After Eight said: ""Still, I think the choice can easily be defended by following Shaw’s wishes."



How odd of me.

And hereI thought that the production being presented last night was My Fair Lady, not Pygmalion.

What a foolish notion!

What ever could have put that thought in my head?

Was it the ticket I had purchased bearingthe name "My Fair Lady" on it? Or the Playbill handed to me as I entered? Or the t-shirts and such being hawked in the theatre?

I really have got to stop jumping to such erroneous conclusions!"



Who hurt you?

Adding my two cents on the ending. (Obligatory SPOILER tag. I'm going to be specific.)

I also had the impression she appeared in his imagination. He's listening to her voice on the gramophone. She enters through the door, stops the recording, he turns and says the line. She slowly walks toward him. (I was fearful of a kiss from my angle. Thankfully there wasn't one.) She touches his cheek very gently, then turns toward the audience, walks off the set and back through the audience.

As her exit was different from her entrance, it gives her a dream-like quality. As well as the brushing of his cheek which seems out of character for her. She doesn't say a word. Took me by surprise, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. After that argument, I could not see any circumstance that she would come back of her own volition.

Also, Lauren Ambrose's performance during You Did It was stunning. She silently wanders around the room while everyone congratulates Higgins. Couldn't stop watching her. Her resolve in the following arguments is too great. If she actually returned, I'd have felt gypped for taking her side this whole time. So I loved it.

MCfan2 said: "I don't like the sound of that ending at all. If I wanted to see Pygmalion, I'd go see Pygmalion. (Incidentally, it wasn't L/L who came up with the MFL ending. It happened long before that, in the movie version of Pygmalion, and even before that when Mrs. Campbell insisted on subverting Shaw -- which I think was rather Eliza-like of her.)"

If it were Eliza-like plucky, audacious and bold for Campbell to "subvert," or otherwise transform, Shaw, why must it then be intolerable, or at least objectionable, for Sher to "subvert," or otherwise transform, Lerner?

(Also, for the record, posters (including myself) have addressed the fact that the 1938 movie version of PYGMALION performed the same final curtain modification Lerner employed in MY FAIR LADY.... just saying).

As someone who finds great value in both Shaw's and Lerner resolutions, I'm going to see this production with an open mind, and without any of the purist's devotion to either of those writer's denouments.

Updated On: 3/16/18 at 09:57 AM