Archives for April 20, 2018

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Lincoln Center Theater’s new Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. Here’s an excerpt.

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Of all the great Broadway musicals of the postwar era, “My Fair Lady” is the only one that takes a major work of literature, George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” and turns it into an equally distinguished musical that is true to the spirit and letter of its source material….

For this reason alone, it’s appropriate that Lincoln Center Theater, which is as well known for its musical-comedy revivals as it is for its productions of the plays of such noted modern dramatists as John Guare and Tom Stoppard, should now be mounting the fourth Broadway revival of “My Fair Lady,” which was last seen in New York in 1994. Nor would anyone reasonably expect LCT to offer the kind of radical transformation of so beloved a musical that Bedlam recently gave us in its small-scale “Pygmalion” (which closes on Sunday, if you haven’t seen it yet). Instead, Bartlett Sher, the director, has mounted “My Fair Lady” in the now-familiar manner of his hugely and deservedly successful LCT revivals of “South Pacific” and “The King and I.” Like its predecessors, it’s a very big show, with elaborate costumes, a full-sized pit orchestra, a Turneresque drop portraying Vicwardian London and a star, Lauren Ambrose, who is famous for her TV work but is also a stage performer of the first rank.

If you’ve been eagerly waiting for Ms. Ambrose to return to the New York stage ever since she stole the show from Susan Sarandon nine years ago in “Exit the King,” you’ll be happy to hear that she’s a knockout and a wow….

I’ve seen more dramaturgically adventurous revivals, most notably at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2013 (where Amanda Dehnert staged the show in the style of Brecht) and at Boston’s Lyric Stage in 2015 (where it was mounted in a small-scale production of the utmost ingenuity). Nevertheless, this version works—up to a point.

That point is Harry Hadden-Paton, lately of “Downton Abbey” and “The Crown,” who is making his U.S. stage debut as Henry Higgins, the irascible phoneticist who endeavors to turn a Covent Garden flower girl into a Reel English Liydy by scrubbing off her Cockney accent. Mr. Hadden-Paton is competent but less than exciting as Professor Higgins…

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Read the whole thing here.

A montage of scenes from My Fair Lady:

In the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review an off-Broadway revival of Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer. Here’s an excerpt.

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Now that Brian Friel is gone, who is Ireland’s foremost playwright? Martin McDonagh has been getting most of the ink of late, but the Irish Repertory Theatre’s revival of “The Seafarer” reminds us that Conor McPherson also has a strong claim to that title. Directed by Ciarán O’Reilly, this production is equal in quality to the 2007 New York premiere, staged by the author himself, and the 2008 Chicago premiere by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, in which the late, lamented John Mahoney gave the performance of a lifetime. “The Seafarer” seems to bring out the best in those who do it, and when it comes to the Irish Rep, one of America’s finest theater troupes, that’s saying something.

“The Seafarer” is—or at least appears to be—the simplest and most straightforward of kitchen-sink conversation pieces. It unfolds in the seedy living room of Sharky (Andy Murray), an out-of-work chauffeur who has come home to Dublin to look after Richard (Colin McPhillamy), his newly blinded brother. The time is Christmas Eve, and Sharky is spending the evening with Richard, two of their friends (Michael Mellamphy and Tim Ruddy) and a well-dressed stranger (Matthew Broderick). Sharky, Richard and their friends are hard-drinking, middle-aged Irishmen whom life has treated roughly and who all look very much the worse for it. Not so Mr. Lockhart, the mysterious odd man out, who has come to Dublin to see Sharky, from whom he means to…well, collect a debt.

This being an Irish play, you can probably guess without too much difficulty what the debt is and who has come to collect it, and it is the highest of tributes to Mr. McPherson’s professional skill that he still contrives to successfully set off a firecracker of surprise at evening’s end….

This production contains no fancy touches, just an impeccably naturalistic set by Charlie Corcoran (I’ve never seen filthier wallpaper) and five performances that are as deeply rooted in felt life as it’s possible to be….

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Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for The Seafarer:

Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and Gene Krupa, the original members of the Benny Goodman Trio, play George Gershwin’s “Nice Work if You Can Get It” in an unidentified 1960 video clip:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“It may be that the Gods forbad vengeance to man because they reserved for themselves so intoxicating a drink. But the cup should not be drained to the bottom. The dregs are often filthy-tasting.”

Winston Churchill, The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (unabridged 1899 edition)