MY FAIR LADY COMING TO AMERICA!- Page 2

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:04pm

well yes, bill, probably, since Higgins has no respect for Eliza as an equal, more like the fond doting on a well-trained dog that has done something that deserves a cookie and a good petting.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:06pm

No answer back arish? so you see my point then?

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:10pm

yeah- next time you disagree with something, can you act like an intellectual with a degree instead of rudely telling me to get over myself?

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:12pm

and Shaw's work is still used in feminist critical theory so i think my point is still completely valid

[freeadmission]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:16pm

Did any of you ever give thought to the idea that MAYBE Eliza lives Higgins and that MAYBE that's why she came back and that MAYBE she doesn't mind helping him out in getting his slippers for him?

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:19pm

what does she love about him? if she loves him then its a forced plot. all he did was sculpt her into a puppet that he could use however he wanted. dogs can be trained to fetch slippers too.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:20pm

Yeah and Charles Manson used The Beatles music to try and explain himself. Does that make John Lennon a psychopath?

You can't be a feminist by association. Yes, inadvertently he wrote some material that can be construed as feminist. Because in his own misguided views he made women look good by putting them down. But that fact that he found women to be lower forms of life means you can not call him a feminist. Read some of his essays and then try and call him a feminist. Your argument holds no validity.

[freeadmission]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:28pm

"what does she love about him? if she loves him then its a forced plot. all he did was sculpt her into a puppet that he could use however he wanted. dogs can be trained to fetch slippers too."

Because, despite his opinionated nature, he IS a great guy. Hell, I'd probably marry him, were he real. And he tried to sculpt her, but I don't think he suceeded. She may speak better, but she's still the same person ("Without You" and the scene around it, anyone?). And Higgins prefers the woman he failed in sculpting, rather than the woman he wanted to sculpt.

[Roxie_Hart]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:30pm

(Directed to Ourtime992)...

Whenever they revived it on the West End and it started out starring Martine McCutcheon, the chap who played Higgins (can't remember his name off the top of my head-sorry!) actually DID sing the part. However, I didn't really like that. To me, Henry Higgins singing his songs is like Harold Hill singing is.

[DickonDefysGravity]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:37pm

I nominate Chenoweth for the title role.
I'd love to see John Lithgow do Higgins!!!

[freeadmission]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:50pm

Um, no and no.

[Millie42]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:53pm

I respect Cheno and like her singing/acting but I dont think I could sit through the show if she was Eliza.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:54pm

John Lithgow played Henry Higgins at the Hollywood Bowl a couple of summers ago and was brilliant.

[DickonDefysGravity]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 2:56pm

I think that the Cheno/Lithgow pairing would be absolutely hysterical.
And I think that she could bring some life into this overdone cookie cutter role.

[Lucifer]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 3:09pm

the problem is I think everyone would expect kristin to overdo the role and make it funnier than it should be, b/c she's a comical actress.
I guess lithgow wouldn't be bad but I think his "british" accent leaves something to be desired, unless he's purposefully doing a poor accent for DRS

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/21/05 at 6:54pm

chauvinism chauvinismshô´venĬzem, word derived from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier of the First French Empire

-from the encyclopaedia brittanica. the word is not derived from shaw. sorry.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 3:12am

I have a studio recording with Jeremy Irons as Higgins and I wouldn't mind seeing him play the role on Broadway...

[Beergoggles]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 8:42am

Jonathon Pryce sang the role... and did it beautifully! I think Eliza goes back to Higgins for a number of reasons. She has never really had a father figure in her life (she moved out young, dad doesn't care about much other than drinking and booze) and now someone is showing her attention. Whether that attention be good or bad it is helping her to improve her social status. Victorian London was all about status. With the Industrial revoloution taking place around (perhaps before) the time MFL is set the country was filled with aspiration of a better life. The fact Eliza accompoloishes acceptance into an "elite" class is phenomonal. She expresses her gratitude by rethurning to Higgins to acknowledge what he has done for her. She does love him... but as a father. He is worried for her and her proposed marriage to Freddy.... as a father. I do beleive that this was discussed when the origional play was released and an ending was written when Eliza did actually marry Freddy but remained close friends with Higgins... i'll do some research and get back to you.


I found this.....

However, in an epilogue that Shaw wrote after too many directors tried to adapt the conclusion into something more romantic, he writes, "The rest of the story need not be shewn in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of 'happy endings to misfit all stories." He goes on to deliver a detailed and considered argument for why Higgins would never marry Eliza, and vice versa. For one, Higgins has too much admiration for his mother to find any other woman even halfway comparable, and even "had Mrs. Higgins died, there would still have been Milton and the Universal Alphabet." To Shaw's mind, if Eliza marries anyone at all, it must be Freddy--"And that is just what Eliza did." The epilogue goes on to give a dreary account of their married life and faltering career as the owners of a flower and vegetable shop (an ironic treatment of the typical "happily ever after" nonsense) in which Freddy and Eliza must take accounting and penmanship classes to really become useful members of society. One can see this whole play as an intentional deconstruction of the genre of Romance, and of the myth of Pygmalion as well.

Updated On: 6/22/05 at 08:42 AM

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 10:30am

very interesting. what shaw was responding to was all the good novels written in the victorian era with horrible forced endings. you may notice that almost any 3-volume novel you read from the era follows the story of one or more set of characters, mixes them up in all kinds of ordeals and then in the final volume, because this is what the people wanted, construes them into some overly romantic forced ending. 'happy endings to misfit all stories." it ruined a lot of otherwise excellent novels.

the reason why the original ending works so well is because it does NOT give this epilogue, the future is left completely open. the finality of the musical version betrays the exact sentiment that shaw expressed with his comment on misfitted overly romantic endings. in fact, this musical sort of reminds me of those novels, because i love the whole thing up until the final 20 minutes, at which point i usually turn off my television.

and yes, victorian london was all about society, unfortunately, but if you read some of shaws other plays for example major barbara, it is clear that shaw was critical of this system of aristocracy (which disintegrated soon after the turn of the century)

so anyway, my point is just that maybe we've sort of lost sight of the point of the whole story when it was changed in the 60s, its a problematic message in my opinion (i would know, i was brought up on it as a little girl, and subsequently had to re-assess my values as i got older, and was greatly dissappointed when i discovered one of my favorite musicals was now insulting to me.) and i find it somewhat obsolete. lets have more musicals like Millie which promotes independence and the desire to find a partner who is your equal.

[Khashoggi]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 10:39am

Anthony Warlow also sang the role brilliantly here in Australia, during the Nineties. In that particular production it was quite easy to believe that Eliza may return to Higgins in the romantic context, as Anthony was quite a young Higgins, and he is quite attractive.
-J.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 11:15am

Updated On: 5/9/06 at 11:15 AM

[Khashoggi]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 11:24am

Haha...nice!

[nystateomind04]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 11:27am

I posted this on the other My Fair Lady thread...

Maybe she is a bit too old for it now but I wish Audra McDonald would do Eliza.