Word: evening
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...CAST is all competent--you don't cringe at any of the singing, even if you do at some of the French pronunciation in the untranslated opening number--but only one singer stands out. David McIntosh's leering, contorted expressions and jerky, stage presence give no hint of the size, strength and confidence of his baritone voice. His solos, "Mathilde" and "Amsterdam," demand the most stamina and brashness of the Brel songs in this show, and McIntosh has plenty of both. In "Amsterdam," a lurid ballad of drunken sailors, he bellows the lines with as much force and volume...
Director Greg Delawie has let all the lady's flabby flesh burst through her corset. He retains unaltered the play's weakest scenes, and even attempts to squeeze a size-14 chorus on the size-6 Dunster stage. The cast gamely bounces around but constantly risk stubbing toes on the furniture. When it isn't under orders to move, it sits blankly on the stage, obscurred from the view of everybody sitting farther back than the third...
...seems that Delawie blithely envisioned an Alexandrian theatrical conquest without considering the limitations of his stage and cast. After all, even a threadbare musical like My Fair Lady can be mended with judicious shearing of cast and plot and modernizing of a few phrases of antiquated moralism. Delawie had innumerable versions to choose as models for his adaptation; he could even have set it in Cambridge and poked fun at Dorchester accents...
...Dunster cast does the same. In fact, leads Selene Tompsett and Craig Hollander vaguely resemble Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. The problem with trying to produce a show that mimicks a movie or even a Broadway production is obvious: students on a dining hall stage cannot hope to capture entirely the precision of professional performers. They end up looking silly...
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...