My Fair Lady

 
‘My fair Lady’ is the musical adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw book, ‘Pygmalion’. In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a king who created, and then fell in love with, a beautiful ivory statue. In answer to his dreams, the sculpture was given life by Aphrodite.
With lyrics by Alan J Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, this spectacle is being performed at the Marloo Theatre, Marloo Road, Greenmount. Evening shows, curtain up at 7.30 pm, until December 18^th. The Sunday Matinees are on 28^th November and 5^th December at 2.00 pm.

        It is a cold evening in 1906, and outside the Covent Garden Opera House the chestnut men and the flower sellers are preparing for the theatre audience to exit. One of the flower girls, a scruffy, filthy ‘cabbage leaf’ Eliza Doolittle (Cassandra Kotchie) is watching the children perform acrobatics (Jared and Joanna Money, Melissa Mikucki, Charlotte and Olivia Spraggs) and the Pearly King and Queen doing a lively Irish jig, when she notices in the shadows a figure in a tweed suit, trilby and an astrakhan coat. Fear grips her when she notices that he is writing in a book. Liza discovers it is Professor Higgins (Allan Schintu), a linguist and accent expert.

       When Higgins meets an old friend, Colonel Pickering (Adrian Wood), he points out what a totally disgusting human specimen Eliza is, and how he would love to train her so that in 6 months she would appear to be nobility. Higgins suggests that Eliza should consult him, but is rejected.

      Eliza returns home, meeting her drunken dustman father, Alfred (Keith Scrivens) being evicted yet again from the Red Lion by the barman (Richard Coleman). When Alfred takes Eliza’s night’s earnings for more beer, Liza decides that Higgins may be the better of the two evils.

      Housekeeper, Mrs Pearce (Carole Chantry) is called to Higgins’s study to scrub the vermin from Eliza before he starts his tuition. A few days later, whilst the unsuccessful speech lessons are taking place, Higgins’s butler (Norman Faraday) announces that a dustman has arrived to claim his daughter. Higgins negotiates and buys Eliza for five pounds, but makes a note to contact an American friend about Alfred’s ‘delicious’ accent.

      A few months later, before taking Eliza to the Embassy Ball, Higgins takes his protégée to the Ascot Races to see how she will stand up amongst his mother’s (Rosemary Mowbray) wealthy friends. It is here that Eliza meets Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Callan Kneale) and his mother (Vicky Spraggs), but will the pupil stick to the limited topics that she has practised so well?

       At the Ball, Eliza is introduced to The Queen of Transylvania (Marjorie De Caux); Higgins discovers his nemesis, an old student of his, who has now opened a similar school in voice training, the dastardly Professor Zoltan Karpathy (Ken Harris). Will the accomplished Professor see through Higgins con?

      What will happen to Eliza? Where will she end up, back in the slums of London?

 

On going to the theatre to see a play that was a 1964 film which won 8 Oscars, I knew it would be difficult to judge the performances and the production without thinking of the cinematic work. However with a cast of forty-eight and twelve musicians (from a group of twenty), then you know that Marloo is going to put up an admirable challenge.A musical such as ‘My Fair Lady’ is well known and the expectations are great. There should be plenty of sparkle and drive, good pace and a well-balanced musical accompaniment, not overpowering the actors. Andrew Dobosz was the accomplished musical director, he has engaged a mainly wind instrument orchestra that gives the music a massive depth of richness, and allows for the short, sharp, bouncy phrasing of the music. This melodious orchestra was situated at the rear of the stage out of sight.

Choosing the cast must have been a major worry for director Douglas Sutherland-Bruce, but he selected brilliantly. The two leads could act, sing and dance flawlessly. Allan Schintu had a perfectly refined English accent and his delivery was truly engaging, drawing the audience into Higgins’s misguided reasoning. Cassandra Kotchie, who was WAAPA trained in voice and music, has a rich voice with perfect pitch that one could listen to for hours. At the opening, Cassandra really hissed and snarled like an animal, and sang with a coarse Cockney accent, which mellowed into the delightful multi-octave range of the ‘new’ Eliza. The whole cast were magnificent.

The chorus, perfectly trained by Amanda Minutillo, had to tackle songs that ranged from the soft opening number, through madrigals, tricky contra numbers, barber shop, snappily delivered pieces like the ‘Ascot Races’, the challenges were endless and demanding, and yet there wasn’t a bum note to be heard. They were in perfect harmony.

The dancing, choreographed by Donna Williams, was step perfect. Even the youngest danced with a happy smile and an assured foot.

In the film, Audrey Hepburn who couldn’t really dance played Eliza, and then she had her singing dubbed by Marni Nixon. Hepburn started as an unconvincing, immaculately dressed flower girl with a bit of dirt on her face, here, thanks to Marjorie De Caux’s costumes and the fine make-up section, Cassandra was grimy and totally undesirable, which made the transformation so much more believable. Some of the gowns were amazing, none more than Eliza’s ball gown when she looked stunningly regal.

The costumes ranged from the ragged urchins, to the exquisite black and white Ascot outfits complete with matching parasols. All of the trimmings were there too; nothing was spared in the opulence of this production.

The lighting and sound designs were complex yet operated flawlessy. The set? What can one say other than truly gob smacking! The curtains closed on the Covent Garden pillars and limestone façade, only to open seconds later to reveal Higgins’s study with its wooden, curved staircase and split-level library, antique furniture and marble fireplace. The staircase was solid, not a wobble as the players danced up and down. The set changes were practically silent and a huge credit must be given to Joy Harvey’s talented team.

The director employed the wings, front of curtain, and the aisles of the theatre to give the audience full involvement. Sorry but my programme had two cast lists and no techies and crew list, so I cannot give any names to the many more who were deserving of credit.
 
I’m sorry that this is more of a post mortem rather than a review, but I only managed to get a last minute cancellation for the last performance of this sell-out show.

This was a community theatre production, which had it been judged as a fully professional musical would still have had rave reviews. The standard all-round was outstanding - to think that I almost missed this exceptional masterpiece.