With A Little Bit of Luck!!
Every now and then it is fun to dust off an old chestnut, and they don’t come any older and dustier than Lerner and Lowe’s Broadway tour de force, My Fair Lady. Pittsburgh was the opening salvo of a national tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of this melody filled classic, which premiered on Broadway on March 15, 1956. (Hard to believe, isn’t it?) This is a British production based on a British 2001 revival. It is “smashing”.
When I was 12, My Fair Lady was one of the first albums I purchased when stereophonic sound hit my household. My grandmother had several 78 rpm records on which parts of the score appeared on what were early Broadway compilations. The problem is that over the years I have never seen a serious production of the musical. Mostly it went from barely mediocre community theater to perfectly awful high school productions. The music was sung ad nauseum by every choral group I ever belonged to, and we sang it badly. I reached the point where I wanted to shoot that old war horse….and bury it forever.
My wife, however, accompanied her high school’s version of the musical on the piano, and was ready to wax nostalgic. It was more than a safe bet that we would never get the chance to see a full blown production of the show again. So we sprang for a set of tickets.
This production was spiffed up, buffed out, and polished to a high gloss. Costumes are big and beautiful. Sets are outstanding. The chorus is large and talented, and the orchestra is symphonic. It features revamped orchestrations and choreography. With a Little Bit of Luck is turned into a Stomp like production with trash cans and lids, and it stopped the show. Having listened to the original cast album so many times, the new chord progressions and instrumentation became almost distracting, but beautiful and fresh.
They even touched up the story line a tad, making Eliza Doolittle much more of a modern woman. The ambivalent ending is somewhat changed to make Eliza and Professor Higgins more equal in the story resolution (with questionable success). Even Freddie is made a more serious love interest giving On the Street Where You Live much more believability, and giving Henry Higgins more of a rival. The differences are subtle, but effective.
I have always had reservations about revivals, especially those shows that have become cliché, including My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Oklahoma, and the worst of the worst, The Sound of Music (this one is beyond all hope). Grease is rapidly reaching that category, and some say that High School Musical is already there. That being said, PBS broadcast a concert version of South Pacific starring Reba McIntyre and Alec Baldwin. It was terrific, Baldwin's politics notwithstanding. And Oklahoma had a successful updated Broadway run and tour.
This version of My Fair Lady restores my faith in the old chestnut classics. If you get the chance to see it, go. If you don’t, get out your turntable and listen to your cast album. The melodies are worth the trip down memory lane, not only for the songs themselves, but for a time when you left musical theater humming a tune and feeling good. Click here to link to the website: My Fair Lady.
When I was 12, My Fair Lady was one of the first albums I purchased when stereophonic sound hit my household. My grandmother had several 78 rpm records on which parts of the score appeared on what were early Broadway compilations. The problem is that over the years I have never seen a serious production of the musical. Mostly it went from barely mediocre community theater to perfectly awful high school productions. The music was sung ad nauseum by every choral group I ever belonged to, and we sang it badly. I reached the point where I wanted to shoot that old war horse….and bury it forever.
My wife, however, accompanied her high school’s version of the musical on the piano, and was ready to wax nostalgic. It was more than a safe bet that we would never get the chance to see a full blown production of the show again. So we sprang for a set of tickets.
This production was spiffed up, buffed out, and polished to a high gloss. Costumes are big and beautiful. Sets are outstanding. The chorus is large and talented, and the orchestra is symphonic. It features revamped orchestrations and choreography. With a Little Bit of Luck is turned into a Stomp like production with trash cans and lids, and it stopped the show. Having listened to the original cast album so many times, the new chord progressions and instrumentation became almost distracting, but beautiful and fresh.
They even touched up the story line a tad, making Eliza Doolittle much more of a modern woman. The ambivalent ending is somewhat changed to make Eliza and Professor Higgins more equal in the story resolution (with questionable success). Even Freddie is made a more serious love interest giving On the Street Where You Live much more believability, and giving Henry Higgins more of a rival. The differences are subtle, but effective.
I have always had reservations about revivals, especially those shows that have become cliché, including My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Oklahoma, and the worst of the worst, The Sound of Music (this one is beyond all hope). Grease is rapidly reaching that category, and some say that High School Musical is already there. That being said, PBS broadcast a concert version of South Pacific starring Reba McIntyre and Alec Baldwin. It was terrific, Baldwin's politics notwithstanding. And Oklahoma had a successful updated Broadway run and tour.
This version of My Fair Lady restores my faith in the old chestnut classics. If you get the chance to see it, go. If you don’t, get out your turntable and listen to your cast album. The melodies are worth the trip down memory lane, not only for the songs themselves, but for a time when you left musical theater humming a tune and feeling good. Click here to link to the website: My Fair Lady.
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