Saturday, January 11, 2020

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2009. That day Mattie received several gifts. One was a package filled with military badges. As you can see Mattie was wearing a few of them proudly! The other item he received was the wand he was holding. It was given to him by the owner of the Dairy Godmother (an ice cream) in Del Ray, VA. Not only did Mattie love the wand, but he loved the ice cream that came with it. I would say throughout Mattie's treatment, ice cream was a staple. 






Quote of the day: Sher (director of My Fair Lady in Washington, DC) grapples with the misogyny Henry has expressed all through the show by adding his own consequential tweak to the musical’s ambiguous final moments, when Eliza and Henry come face to face in his study, and he delivers that last command: “Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?” Is the demand ironic or presumptuous, or both? The answer the director comes up with will be left to you to discover. But the reaction of Mackintosh’s Henry as the lights go down feels as if it’s the one false note on an otherwise impeccable evening. ~ Peter Marks

Peter and I gave ourselves the gift of season tickets to Kennedy Center musicals this year. Today we saw My Fair Lady. I can't tell you how many times I have seen the Audrey Hepburn movie. Not just as an adult, but as a child. I feel like I grew up with the musical and frankly this is where the problem lies. Because in my mind, you can't possibly redo perfection. No one is Audrey Hepburn or Rex Harrison, and I caught myself in the first 15 minutes of the musical feeling very disappointed. However, as soon as I rationalized this, I then started to appreciate the actors performing in front of me for who they were. 

In a nutshell, My Fair Lady is supposed to take place in 1912 London. The story focuses upon a pompous phonetics professor Henry Higgins, who is so sure of his abilities that he takes it upon himself to transform a Cockney working-class girl into someone who can pass for a cultured member of high society. His subject turns out to be the lovely Eliza Doolittle, who agrees to speech lessons to improve her job prospects. Higgins and Eliza clash, then form an unlikely bond.

As I said the play takes place in 1912. However, the director clearly couldn't leave that era alone. Instead, he felt the need to modernize the play and have inter-racial marriages and transgender individuals integrated into the story line. I get it, we are in 2020, but if you plan to address such issues openly as we do today, then reset your play into modern times. Otherwise, I found myself confused as it is impossible to compare what you are seeing on stage to the 1964 movie. 

I would say the one aspect of the play that deserves mentioning is the stage set itself. This is the library scene, but picture this library on a revolving circular set. Or how about like a piece of a revolving pie. One slice is the library, another slice is the front hallway, another slice is the study Eliza learns in, and the final slice is an outdoor scene of the house. All these slices or scenery are part of ONE revolving pie! Literally as the characters are singing on stage, they were freely moving into different rooms. I have NEVER seen such a clever stage like this before. So as Eliza is singing we can literally see her walking from the study into the hallway of the house. Typically in theatre, you see the backdrops change behind the actors. But in this case, it almost felt like watching someone interacting with us in a real life setting. 

I did not take these photos mind you. I got them from Google, but I wanted you to see the amazing costumes. I would say the staging and costumes were amazing. Not to mention Lerner and Lowe's music. However, there were aspects of the play I disliked and the top of my list was the ending. 





The film clip below highlights the way the movie ended. In the movie it is quite clear that Eliza and Henry have come to an understanding and appreciate each other. You have no doubt understanding that Eliza has returned! In today's stage performance, you as an audience member see Eliza come back and we here her say the exact line as Audrey Hepburn did in the movie..... as it related to Henry's slippers. However, instead, of him smiling, she walks off stage.  I frankly don't know where she walked off to, other then back stage. I don't know if she remained in the house or truly what her intentions were. Looking at Henry Higgins face on stage, left me equally perplexed. I hated the ending big time and truly wonder why people feel the need to mess with a classic. My thinking is the director is trying to portray Eliza as a modern and strong woman. A woman who doesn't have to fetch a man's slippers. Honestly if the director felt the need to revise the ending, then I truly believe he never understood or appreciated the 1964 plot! As I did not need to see Audrey Hepburn walk off stage. It was quite clear she knew who she was, what she was capable of, and that she could hold her own with the good professor.

Click on this image below to see the trailer for My Fair Lady at the Kennedy Center: