Theater Review - Doctoring Doolittle

Normally the musical My Fair Lady arrives with a full orchestra and a sprawling cast of shabby cockneys and stuffed-shirt aristocrats. For the Alliance Theatre, Susan V. Booth directs a kind of “unplugged” version with just 10 versatile actors and two quick-fingered pianists. The lean, economical approach brings the leads into appealingly sharp focus, but introduces fresh challenges to a musical that comes with built-in problems.

Lady faithfully adapts the premise and wit of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw’s comedy in which language professor Henry Higgins (Neal Benari) transforms uncouth flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Amanda Watkins) into the toast of society. The musical builds to a romantic triangle between Eliza, Higgins and upper-class twit Freddy (Alan Souza), but often only by implication. Songs such as “On the Street Where You Live” celebrate infatuation but do little to drive the plot or develop the relationships.

Booth’s Lady, while brightly sung, underscores the musical’s weaknesses. Benari gives Higgins the right measures of arrogance and verbal dexterity, but he remains chilly to a fault. Even in “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face,” we believe his anger more than his tentative tenderness. Benari belongs in Shaw’s play, not Lerner and Loewe’s musical.

In Shaw’s take on social Darwinism, Higgins’ emotions barely evolve, while Eliza successfully adapts to the upper classes. Watkins partially reveals this through her singing. She hits the biggest, most operatic notes in Act Two songs such as “Show Me,” as if education has finally given her a voice. But in the first act, Eliza’s accent and antics invariably make the role a forum for overacting, and Watkins doesn’t resist the temptation, mewling and whooping more broadly than necessary.

The show’s two-piano musical design nicely illustrates the English music hall influence in Lerner and Loewe’s songs, and the bouncy notes from the piano keys match the intricate lyrics. Choreographer Daniel Pelzig provides some imaginative footwork, but the dances still look sparse and underpopulated on the Alliance’s main stage. It’s a fair Lady, but had it been staged on the smaller Hertz stage, it could have been a prize Pygmalion.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com

My Fair Lady runs through Feb. 29 at the Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. $17-$46. 404-733-5000. www.alliancetheatre.org.