Musical Mondays: My Fair Lady

(Spoiler warning: this contains some spoilers for the musical My Fair Lady in both musical and movie form.)

Before I saw My Fair Lady I worried that it would suffer from some of the same issues I felt in Carousel, which was also nominated for the Tony for Best Revival. I finally saw the Lerner & Loewe musical this weekend, and I was actually really pleased. My Fair Lady has its own controversy recently, but I still think this is a gorgeous show that manages to make a few small changes in order to feel more relevant in 2018.

My Fair Lady is an inherently misogynistic play. It is a classist play. It is a play that is entirely based on a man telling a woman how she is not enough in being herself and must be made up to be considered a more acceptable human being (read: object for the male gaze.) The current rendition takes the inherent sexism and the direction makes Professor Higgins seem more ludicrous. The laughs certainly seemed to be harder at Professor Higgins than they were at any type of veracity in the jokes he was making at the expense of Eliza.

It’s still a very funny play, but perhaps this change in direction is seen at the very end. Now, I’ve never seen this musical on stage before, but the movie ends after Professor Higgins says the line “where are my slippers?” This musical doesn’t end until Eliza walks off of her own accord. It gives her agency. Under a lot of circumstances, I would say that leaving the ending with some ambiguity is a stronger play. I am totally fine with the audience deciding what happens to the characters, but I think in this specific situation it was actually preferred that the final action was a moment of strength for our female lead.

Perhaps what Lincoln Center is known for is producing beautiful musicals, and this one fit the bill. It won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design. Even the decorations when you entered the lobby were gorgeous.

Perhaps the only thing that shined brighter than those gorgeous flowers was Norbert Leo Butz as Alfred Doolittle. His Tony-nominated performance was just pure, theatrical fun. The Get Me to the Church on Time number was by far the best performance, and that is thanks almost entirely to the energy he put into the role. I could’ve watched that number on repeat for the entirety of the play and come away thinking it was a smashing success.

Ultimately, My Fair Lady did what Carousel couldn’t and shook a lot of the dated sexism that is inherent or at least provided enough levity that it didn’t feel bogged down. It’s a fun show, feels like old, grand theater, and should be a good time for anyone who wants to see a musical.