The revival was instead chiefly notable for its general subtlety and intelligence (o rare!), its ingenious set (which transformed itself around a Crystal-Palace-like lattice from library to Covent Garden and beyond), and the performances of its two leads. Lisa O'Hare, as you probably know by now, combined Audrey Hepburn's looks with Julie Andrews's pipes (well, almost) in a charmingly scrappy performance that felt like a kind of wrinkle in the showbiz space-time continuum. As her bachelor antagonist, Christopher Cazenove likewise channeled his sole antecedent, Rex Harrison - but somehow came off as more sexless than Rex, which is of course perfectly appropriate to Shaw, but drained the air out of the show's second act, which depends on something like romance to stay afloat. As if to compensate, Nunn seemed to pour on the production numbers, which only slowed things down further. Luckily, the songs themselves remain evergreen - and, to Lerner and Lowe's eternal credit, seem to grow right out of Shaw's dialogue. Imagine Andrew Lloyd Webber pulling off that. No, no way, not even with a little bit of luck.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A very fair Lady
The revival was instead chiefly notable for its general subtlety and intelligence (o rare!), its ingenious set (which transformed itself around a Crystal-Palace-like lattice from library to Covent Garden and beyond), and the performances of its two leads. Lisa O'Hare, as you probably know by now, combined Audrey Hepburn's looks with Julie Andrews's pipes (well, almost) in a charmingly scrappy performance that felt like a kind of wrinkle in the showbiz space-time continuum. As her bachelor antagonist, Christopher Cazenove likewise channeled his sole antecedent, Rex Harrison - but somehow came off as more sexless than Rex, which is of course perfectly appropriate to Shaw, but drained the air out of the show's second act, which depends on something like romance to stay afloat. As if to compensate, Nunn seemed to pour on the production numbers, which only slowed things down further. Luckily, the songs themselves remain evergreen - and, to Lerner and Lowe's eternal credit, seem to grow right out of Shaw's dialogue. Imagine Andrew Lloyd Webber pulling off that. No, no way, not even with a little bit of luck.
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My Fair Lady
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