I could have watched all night and still have watched some more of Vienna Theatre Company’s “My Fair Lady,” now onstage at Vienna’s Community Center.
It’s a delight, the best I’ve seen of the theatre’s plays over several years, hard to imagine that a show this big could be successfully produced by a community theatre with an all-volunteer staff, but, oh!
That overpowering feeling, a thousand things they’ve never done before.
The enchanting music alone pours out of every door and is well worth the price of a ticket ($18) with knockout costumes by Juliana Cofrancesco and Farrell Hartigan.
Stage manager and last-minute director Katie Boone says the company saved its money for this “Lady,” and it shows.
The actors get all spruced up and lookin’ in their prime with four costume changes for each actor and four changes alone in one scene for the female star, Eliza Doolittle (Nicole Keats Headd).
She has a delicate, crystal clear voice which carries her well beyond expectations, like one of the beautiful flowers she tries to sell to the haughty and mighty convincing Charles Boone who is Mr. Higgins, the conceited aristocrat who, with his sidekick Greg LaNave as the perfectly cast Colonel Pickering, have a contest to see if Eliza can change her Cockney talk and fool ‘em at a fancy ball and masquerade as a duchess, or, would that be a princess?
That’s how the speech professor (Brandon Seehoffer) describes her at the ball: She’s royalty from Hungary!
It’s 1912 in London when (maybe) class distinctions are more pronounced than they are today and Eliza by her wit becomes a part of Higgins’s courtly circle, Professor Higgins who soon grows accustomed to Eliza’s face.
He was serenely independent and content before they met and yet…
But not to ignore the show’s producer, Eric Storck, who doubles as Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle, another perfectly cast and costumed poor fellow from the gutter who’s down on his luck but finds a little bit of it to land him a gig and some shillings from no less than academia’s finest.
Mrs. Pearce (Nancy Nowalk) is Higgins’ —————–housekeeper whose eyes roll hither and yon and back again as she hears Higgins spout some new epithet he throws at the “garbage” found in the street. (Hats off to costumers and the hair and makeup artist who fashioned Mrs. Pearce’s hair in a quite right old-fashioned marm style with a quaint dress to match.)
Janice Zucker is Mr. Higgins’ mother, equally as strong and wordly well endowed to put down her son and his foolishness.
And then there’s Freddy (Patrick Cochran), the strongest vocalist, who often walked down the street where Eliza stays with Higgins on Wimpole Street.
Charles Boone and Jack Rollins have judiciously used props (by Claire Tse) in a marvelous example of what can be done on a small budget.
In front of the stage curtains, they put up a front door and bushes where actors come and go while Freddy marches up and down the stage singing that he is several stories high.
And lest we not forget the disarming ensemble who carry every scene they’re in, producing the best music and laughs, critical to the show’s success.
It’s spring, budge outa your chair for ding! dong! The bells will chime.
“My Fair Lady” is based on the 1964 classic film by Allen Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe which was adapted from the 1956 Broadway production which won six Tony awards. The film, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, won eight Academy Awards.
Wouldn’t it be loverly if the production omitted the 1950’s and 60’s sexist orders and words (don’t let them keep you from enjoying this fabulous show.)
Other members of the cast are Shelby Kaplan, Cara Giambrone, Kim Paul, Caroline Kinney, Steven Palkovitz, Christine Domin, Bella Hyun Huh, Susan Pauly, Ann Storck and Lauren Sunday.
The creative team includes Ari McSherry, lighting; Zophia Pryzby, choreographer; Darin Stringer, music director; Emily Doppée, Myer Kim and Jon Roberts sound designers, and Jon Roberts, special effects, too.
Duration: A fast three hours with a 15-minute break. Now through May 3, 2006, on Friday and Saturday nights at 7 p.m., Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Vienna Community Center, 120 Cherry St., SE, Vienna, VA 22180. Buy tickets online or at the box office. For more information: vtcshows@yahoo.com
