Word: eliza
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Unconventional leads may have sparked the production, even if the supporting cast sagged. But both Henry Higgins (Hollander) and Eliza Doolittle (Tompsett) turn in standardized and mediocre performances. Tompsett's voice is low and well-modulated with a slight Southern softening, and though she tries to shrill, her slummy "Garn..." resonates with upper-class tonality. You can't make a sow's ear out of a silk purse. Only in scenes when Eliza is supposed to be furious with Higgins does Tompsett cast of her placid demeanor, and then she sizzles: her eyes splash cyanide when she seethes, "Just...
...CONTRAST to Eliza's emotionalism, Higgins should be implacable, for a bohemian professor must remain oblivious to women. Hollander conveys that imperturbability, if somewhat blandly in the first few scenes. His solos, designed for enunciators rather than singers, display his rhetorical skills admirably. Unfortunately, the orchestra, even at low volume, drowns out about one-fourth of his and Tompsett's lyrics...
Although the Dunster version of My Fair Lady shines during Milton's scenes and when Col. Picering (Marc Dolan--the one actor not cast in the movie's all-pervasive mold) calls the police to report Eliza's disappearance, the audience expects more. A production of one of the most popular musicals of all time--in which every song is a hit and the audience can practically recite favorite lines along with the actors--should not be picayune and imitative. The Dunster crew shows how worn a top-notch musical can become when it loses its youthful flair...
...Playwright Louis La Russo II credit for knowing his Italo-American dropouts, fighters with four-letter mouths. He plants neon stickers on his key figures. The good guy (Danny Aiello) is Over-the-Hill. The bad guy (Edward O'Neill) is Below-the-Belt. There is an English Eliza Doolittle (Margaret Warncke) for whose favors they stage a slam-bang finale. Too bad someone forgot to throw in the towel...
...angel gesture, and proclaims: "The spirit of Gutenberg stood before me and said, 'Mitch...'" At such moments Mitch looks a bit like a road-company version of Rex Harrison (with glasses), called upon by God and central casting to reform a whole functionally illiterate world of Eliza Doolittles. And behind all the song and dance, he is not just kidding...