Theater Review—

Last Chance To See Richter’s Loverly Opener

By Julie Stern

DANBURY — When I learned that Musicals at Richter had landed Jane Farnol to direct Priscilla Squiers and David Roth as Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady for their season opener this year, I was really excited. Then when rain washed out the entire first weekend of the show’s three-week run, I was extremely frustrated. Now, however, having finally seen the production, I am happy to say it was even better than I had hoped.

Lerner and Loewe’s interpretation of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion – the tale of a linguistic professor who bets that he can take a cockney flower-seller and transform her into a duchess by correcting her speech and deportment, treated – is one of the great American shows of all time. And the staff and players at Richter have really done it justice.

Under Ms Farnol’s direction and coupled with the choreography of Andrea Metchick, there is not one draggy moment, one soppy exchange, nor even one moment of dead time. Even the set changes – 16 in all, alternating between the professor’s study, the streets of Covent Garden, and the Ascot Race Course, all beautifully designed and crafted by Keir Hansen – happen almost instantaneously.

My Fair Lady retains Shaw’s sardonic skewering of the British class system while brightening it up with Alan Jay Lerner’s clever lyrics set to Frederick Loewe’s captivating melodies. These range from the Cockney sentiments of Eliza’s reprobate of a father in “With a Little Bit of Luck…” and “Get Me To the Church on Time” and Professor Higgins’ supercilious reflections “Why Can’t the English?” “I’m an Ordinary Man…,” and  “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face,” to the plucky Eliza’s outbursts of self-assertion, beginning with “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” to “Just You Wait,” “The Rain in Spain,” “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “(Don’t Just Talk of Love) Show Me!”

In addition, there is the one soulful ballad, “On the Street Where You Live,” sung by the hapless socialite fool, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, played with feeling by Anthony Grasso.

Priscilla Squiers is a wonderful comic actress with great stage presence and a rich and beautiful voice. She is well matched here by David Roth, who makes the character of Henry Higgins more complex, and less of a caricature than Rex Harrison did in the original.

In addition, Frank Arnone brings energy and raffish charm to the role of the irrepressible dustman Alfred Doolittle, and John Taylor gives a strong performance as Colonel Pickering, the crusty but gallant old bachelor who participates in the “experiment” but unlike Higgins, never loses sight of Eliza’s humanity. Sally Gundy, in the role of Henry’s mother, makes a small role important.

As usual at Richter, Deidre Alexander’s costumes are, in the richness of their color and variety, equal to anything Broadway has to offer, and they serve to enhance the effectiveness of the large ensemble, who, with the other bit players, must be about twenty in number. Alternating between Cockney ragamuffins, liveried servants, and toffee-nosed gentry, they sing, dance, and create a multi-textured world that brings the multiple worlds to life on stage, a fitting backdrop for Shaw’s apt observation that it is not what she says and does that makes the difference between a flower-girl and a duchess, but rather, how she is treated. Only when this message finally sinks into Henry’s highly cerebral cortex can the story have a happy resolution (as Lerner and Loewe are kinder, gentler, and more sentimental than GBS).

Unfortunately, scheduling commitments make it impossible for Richter to make up the rained out performances. Hence the Fourth of July weekend is your last chance to see this dazzling production. But to this reviewer, it is more glorious and more worthy of oohs and ahhs than any chemical pyrotechnics being set off in the tri-state area.

So by all means, call Musicals at Richter and see if you can still get tickets. Then collect your chairs, your picnic and your bug spray, and set out to Richter Arts Center for a few hours of wonderful, genuine entertainment.

(Musicals at Richter/Richter Arts Center, at 100 Aunt Hack Road in Danbury, can be reached at 748-6873 or www.MusicalsAtRichter.org. Tickets are $15 for adults, and $12 for seniors, students and children.

This weekend’s performances will be Friday and Saturday at 8:30 pm, although grounds open at 7:15 for picnics. Rental chairs are available or attendees can bring their own; please try to bring low lawn chairs or blankets for seating.)