Word: lyricizing
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...musical version of My Fair Lady. That's the alias by which it's most commonly recognized, which is not at all to its discredit: few more delightful musicals have ever been written. But what the romantic aura of the Broadway adaptation obscures, and what the new Lyric Stage production generally succeeds in conveying, is the darker, harder-edged quality that persists beneath all the sparkle...
This duality is brought out with all the more force in the "simple-stage" version of the play, which is as it was originally written, and as the Lyric Stage, not surprisingly, chooses to present it. In this pared-down form (Shaw himself later added material for cinematic purposes), we don't see Eliza actually learning to speak; we don't see her triumph at the Embassy reception; we don't see Higgins' nominal rival, Freddy, at all after the third act. What we do see are the progressive stages of the awakening of a human being, measured against...
...Lyric Stage makes the most of its intimate space, employing a simple all-purpose set design and a few well-chosen props. A particularly inspired touch is the inscription on the backdrop of the three major settings of the play-Covent Garden (where Higgins and Eliza first meet), Wimpole Street (Higgins' house), and Earlscourt (Mrs. Higgins' residence)-in phonetic spellings, lighted to show the location of the scene at hand. Less well-conceived are the two step-dancers who serve to bridge the scene changes; they end up looking rather silly and out of place amid the shifting props...
Despite the folly of comparing Pygmalion with its musical offspring, one can't help but recall, a little wistfully, the incomparable inflections of the great Rex Harrison and the riotously funny phonetics lessons (which Shaw either wrote in later or should have written). Nonetheless, the Lyric Stage production does succeed in capturing both the delicious comic shimmer and the essentially problematic nature of Shaw's best-known play...
...Brooks pleads with her listeners to accept her good and bad sides. Then enter the courageous chorus, "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover..." and the song breaks loose, ready to be subdued by her lilting voice once again. Also, I can't forget to mention my favorite lyric which appears in the bridge-"when you hurt, when you suffer, I'm your angel undercover...