I don't know how many renditions of Springtime for Hitler I've viewed in the past week, certainly more than 20.
I do this, I get into frenzies where I need to suck up as much musical theater as I possibly can. It makes up for the majority of the year when I'm focused on other interests, I know I'll always get back to Broadway musicals.
So on a whim, I took a look at the Broadway series events scheduled for the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando and, lo and behold, I found out that "My Fair Lady" was currently playing and was about to wrap it up on Sunday. I quickly snatched up a seat in the $90 range up in the balcony for today's (Saturday) matinee.
Quick little side note about all of this though I just wanted to include here, as you may know, one of the big hit songs of this musical is "I Could Have Danced All Night" which was stunningly performed by the ensemble cast of the movie "The Birdcage." Including the hilarious over the top, burst into the room finale of the number, by Agador Spartacus played by Hank Azaria. Friday I was watching the latest episode of "The Fabulous Mrs. Maisel", and who was the guest star playing a Danny Thomas-type early 1960s comic? None other than Hank Azaria. I just thought this was a weird coincidence that I see Hank Azaria show up in a show and I remember his performance in "The Birdcage" and how it connects to my viewing this weekend of "My Fair Lady." Bear with me and my quirky, disjointed mind.
So how was the performance in Orlando? Not bad, not bad at all! You know the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and its Walt Disney Theater, I've mentioned before, are awesome if you're relegated, like I am, to buying tickets in the cheap seats. Even from my lofty perch up in the balcony, I could see all the action, see facial expressions, and hear everything crystal clear. What a difference from the days of Bob Carr.
The lady to my right was visibly disturbed by having to squeeze next to my fat body and even expressed it during intermission saying "Now I know what sardines feel like!" I told her, assuming she might be a theater maven, "Well it's worse at Bob Carr, as you probably know." As I heard her later discussing the show with her friend, she complained about the actors and their thick English accents and that all she could understand was "The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain", then she commenced to complain about the very cold temps in the theater, and I knew right there and then, not only is she not a theater-goer, this may have been her first exposure to "My Fair Lady."
The most appreciated performance of the night, wasn't from the two leads. Now don't get me wrong, they were good, but the best, rousing, uplifting number was "Get Me to the Church On Time." The actor who played Alfred Doolittle (Michael Hegarty) may not have the best Cockney accent, like the actress playing Eliza (Madeline Powell) did, but man, he could belt it out and act up! Performances were top notch, of course, this is the Broadway Series; these guys tour the country and hone it till they get it right.
But I got to say there were a few things that kind of disturbed me.
Professor Higgins' (Jonathan Grunert) upper class British accent was a little too upper class (Like a British version of David Hyde Pierce), compared to Rex Harrison in the movie. Yes he was upper class, but you could detect in his accent a little bit of an easing of the extremely pronounced dictation of that particular accent probably due to his lack of social skills, and his occupation as a professor, more inclined to downplay the elitism of the class structure, even for the times, being that of the turn of the last century.
Eliza had a lot more difficulty singing her numbers in the Cockney accent then she did in the proper English accent mainly because, her singing voice in the English accent was very operatic. I don't think she knows how to convert that style with a Cockney accent.
The ending was also, like a lot of interpretations of this story, a bit muddled. I remember reading that in the 1964 movie, the implication that Higgins and Eliza Doolittle could possibly ever get together at the end of the film and develop a romantic relationship was quite a bit downplayed and this differed from the stage productions which, yes like this one here tonight, remained vague about it. But in the film it pretty much ruled out that connection probably because Rex Harrison by the time the film came out was well beyond the "decent age" of a romantic liaison with a very young Audrey Hepburn. In this production today the actors playing Eliza and Henry Higgins didn't seem very far apart. In fact, from my lofty perch, it kind of looked like they were the same age. So I think this particular version left it pretty much open as to whether Eliza would select Freddy or would select Henry. I heard mumblings among the crowd that may have not been familiar with the plot as to what to make of the ending and I remember one lady saying to another "So does she get together with this horrible dude?" That's not a quote, it's a paraphrase. But I get what she's saying. I mean to today's audiences, Higgins' treatment of Eliza, from beginning to end, is pretty unforgivable.
Remember he called her, to her face, "deliciously low" and "horribly dirty" and a "gutter snipe." Can't recover from this today, dude.
The other aspect of today's performance was just the chemistry between the characters. I mean, I just didn't feel it. Kind of like "RENT", I think this is another situation, where the actors are too young to really connect with the time period depicted. I mean, one could have said that about the 1964 movie or the 1958 Broadway production since it depicts the life, times, and social attitudes, of the early 20th century, arguably a full couple generations before. But society has changed so much over the past few decades, that I really don't see Millennials or GenZ'ers fully comprehending the dynamics of society back then. Plus, even if it was fully comprehended, the impetus to decry those values, and perhaps even replace them with their own version of reality, can come into play.
We see this a bit, in the casting of a few characters, as is common, black actors were cast in this production, not only as fellow friends living the poverty life in the early scenes when Eliza was still a flower girl at Covent Garden, but even up to the Crown Prince of Transylvania.
Yep, apparently Transylvania could have a royal black man in its Court. Nothing against Eastern Europeans per se, but they're noteworthy as being some of the most racist motherfuckers on Earth. Transylvania, you may know from Dracula shit, is a region in Romania. Let me take a quick peek at its demographics, even today, which may be a little bit more diverse than say the turn of the 19th century...
After Communism, Romania became a destination for some people of African descent to the point that today they represent some 11,000 citizens. That's 11,000 citizens out of 19 million. And this diaspora has primarily been attributed to migration of people's within the Communist spheres of the mid 20th century. So how many black Romanians do you think there were in say 1912? And how many of those were of Royal lineage? But I digress. It's common today to see this. Oddly enough, in fictional depictions of European royalty and upper class. Whatever. We know what it is. Though I personally don't think it's a total revision and rewriting of history, it's a reimagining of what could have been had racism not been as prevalent as it most definitely has been through the Millennia.
My visit to Orlando this weekend was supposed to have been another theme park /musical theater travelogue but when I got to the hotel that I had booked, at the Econo Lodge on iDrive, the same place I stayed last time, I saw these two dudes doing a drug transaction right in front of my window. And I don't mean weed, I mean white powder in little plastic squares, whatever the fuck that was.
I went to the front desk, told them I did not feel safe as there were drug transactions being conducted right outside my window. They gave me the runaround about refunding me even though I had only been there 10 minutes. We'll see if they do actually refund me. Nevertheless, I didn't stay and visit Chili's across the street and have a few beers, maybe pop on over to Buffalo Wild Wings, and a few more beers, and then hit up IOA in the morning, as I'd planned. I was just totally wigged out, and I just wanted to come home.
Home. You know. The literal epitome of my "room somewhere." This is all I ever wanted, it's all I desire for the rest of my life. I don't need to mingle with people. I don't need to sit like a sardine with nasty bitchy chicks in a theater. I don't need to go to ghetto motels and worry if some drug pusher is going to take out retribution against me for finking on him. I don't need another day at the theme park, during Mother's Day weekend, where no doubt it will be maximum capacity.
I can just stay, here, safe, sound, and secure, in my room somewhere.
I mean, wouldn't it be loverly?