My Fair Lady, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe, adapted from Bernard Shaw’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion, co-directed by Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersad, choreographed by Kimberley Rampersad, musical direction by Paul Sportelli, Festival Theatre, closes Dec. 22.
The Shaw Festival’s production of My Fair Lady is the best I’ve ever seen for one reason only – Tom Rooney’s performance as Henry Higgins.
Anyone who follows my reviews knows that I am passionate on the subject of Rooney, whom I regard as one of Canada’s greatest actors. The man can simply do no wrong when he is on stage, and what he brings to the Higgins role is monumental.
He becomes a real person with real feelings. He shows vulnerability and passion. When Higgins insults Eliza (Kristi Frank), it’s not funny. It is genuinely cruel. When he dances with Eliza at the Embassy Ball, we see him give in to the sexual attraction between them. The chemistry is palpable. When he threatens to kill Eliza with his hands squeezed around her neck, we know he might actually do it. His feelings of triumph after the ball are electric. When Higgins sings I’ve grown accustomed to her face, it’s heart-breaking because his heart is breaking.
In truth, we all think we know Henry Higgins, but Rooney introduces us to a whole new man, and not the superficial Rex Harrison clone we usually see. I found his performance astonishing – a man giving in to feelings he never knew he had.
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has called My Fair Lady the most perfect musical of them all, and he is right. If you are of a certain age, you most likely know every lyric of every song, and probably a lot of the dialogue as well. For many, this famous 1956 musical can hold no surprises, and you’ve most likely come to the show to experience the expected. But then along comes Rooney as Henry Higgins.
As I was sitting there waiting for the known, Rooney brings the unknown. It was no longer a passive experience. I was caught up in the drama, the intensity, the emotional rollercoaster of the character – and all this in My Fair Lady, for heaven’s sake. At intermission, I was literally stunned into silence.
Of course there is a whole show going on around Higgins, but it’s like the moon rotating around the earth.
For her part, and happily so, Frank’s Eliza has a lot more spit and fire than other Elizas. Even when she is the lady, you can still see the vulgar flower girl just hovering beneath the surface. While not a match for Rooney, Frank holds her own. She is also a lot more physical than most Elizas, willing to throw herself around in the riotous Rain in Spainnumber, for example. In fact, she has a strong stage presence because of her more robust kinetic energy.
As for the others in the cast, they are enjoyably as expected.
David Adams as an engaging Alfred P. Doolittle gets to do his blustery swagger, Sharry Flett is perfectly gracious as the ironic Mrs. Higgins, Patty Jamieson is a crisp Mrs. Pearce and a stately Queen of Transylvania, while Allan Louis is properly pompous and smug as Zoltan Karpathy . A weakish link is David Alan Anderson as Col.Pickering who is suitably stately although on the wooden side. He also flubbed a couple of lines which derails rhythm and pacing. The ensemble is rambunctious as the Cockneys and glacial as the upper crusts at Ascot. As for Taurian Teelucksingh as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, this guy can sing up a storm and commands the stage when he does it. His huge round of applause was well earned.
Whether intentional or not, I appreciate the fact that co-directors, Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersand (the latter also functioning as choreographer), made the cockney scenes revolve mostly around Alfred Doolittle and his neighbourhood relationships rather than routine stand-alone dance numbers. In this way, the ensemble was able to relate to each other as real people which enhanced the exuberance of the numbers. The Embassy Ball was a bit thin on dancers, but, and I’m being kind here, perhaps the co-directors really wanted to isolate the focus on Higgins and Eliza and Karpathy and Eliza.
Oddly, I found Lorenzo Savoini’s sets looking a bit on the cheap side in terms of painting, which is unusual for the Shaw Festival, while not faulting the upper tier design connected to the main stage by spiral staircase. Similarly, Joyce Padua’s costumes are fine for the cockney crowd, but I wanted them to be more glamorous for the aristocrats and Eliza, whose Embassy Ball gown was disappointing. Once again, Paul Sportelli has done a brilliant job with the orchestral adaptation.
It is Rooney’s performance, however, that lifts My Fair Lady beyond the common place.
(Note: Allan Louis is taking over the role of Henry Higgins on October 17, and the show is running through the Christmas season.)
La Cage aux Folles, book by Harvey Fierstein, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, based on the play by Jean Poiret, , directed by Thom Allison, choreographed by Cameron Carver, music direction by Franklin Brasz, closes Oct. 26.
This musical is a perfect example of a “what’s not to like”. It has an amusing plot, engaging characters, and more to the point, tuneful music. Jerry Herman actually wrote songs you could sing unlike many contemporary musicals that are mired in same-sounding soft rock.
La Cage aux Folles was first a French a play which was a giant hit in 1973. A French film version followed in 1978, and Jerry Herman’s musical arrived in 1983. All of them have had tremendous success, and the Stratford production carries on that glorious lineage. The play really is indestructible, but director Thom Aliison and his creative team have pulled out all the stops. The result is the Stratford version of a big budget Broadway musical with all the bells and whistles.
At the centre of the story is a gay couple who have been together for many years. Georges (Sean Arbuckle) is the owner of La Cage aux Folles nightclub in Saint-Tropez where he is also the master of ceremonies. His partner Albin (Steve Ross) is the star drag performer at the club who goes by the stage name of Zaza. Georges was once married and had a son, Jean-Michel (James Daly) whom Alvin helped raise and who thinks of him as his own son. Sadly, it is Jean-Michel who turns the lives of his ”mother and father” upside down.
The 24-year-old son has come home to announce that he is engaged to Anne Dindon (Heather Kosik) whose father (Juan Chioran) happens to be head of the Tradition, Family and Morality Party who want to close down all the drag clubs in Saint-Tropez. As a result, Jean-Michel asks Georges to hide his homosexuality and to tell Albin that he has to stay away when Ann’s father and mother (Sara-Jeanne Hosie) come to visit.
Two other important characters are Jacqueline (Starr Domingue) and Jacob (Chris Vergara). The former owns an elegant restaurant and is a good friend to Georges and Albin. Jacob is George and Albin’s “maid” who gets lots of laughs by being the uber gay stereotype.
And of course, we can’t forget Les Cagelles who are the hilarious chorus line and drag performers at the nightclub.
Needless to say, everything goes wrong and its these shenanigans that help make La Cage aux Folles such an enjoyable theatre experience.
At the heart of the humour is Albin, and Steve Ross is over the top in his performance. For the veteran actor, it is the role of a lifetime, and he brings down the house with his antics. Arbuckle has to play the straight man to Ross ‘ flamboyant Albin and he almost shows too much restraint in his characterization of Georges. It should also be mentioned that the cast is uniformly strong, and an added bonus is that they look like they are having fun.
La Cage aux Folles is a class act. Everything about this production works.
Director Allison is aided and abetted by Cameron Carver’s eye-popping choreography, Brandon Kleiman’s sumptuous sets, and David Boechler’s excellent wide-ranging costumes that clothe the town folks in more sober attire, in contrast to the outlandish outfits for drag queens Albin and the Cagelles.
La Cage aux Folles is a triumph for Stratford and is not to be missed.
(Update: Stratford has announced that the run of La Cage aux Folles has been extended to November. 16.)