This is compounded by the choice to play Professor Henry Higgins as a teenager. A true enough characterization, well-played by Jefferson Mays, that also undermines the audiences suspension-of-disbelief. Higgins is alway a jerk, but as a mature Englishman, someone we can somehow try and believe in -- as an immature adolescent, we just don't care.
Claire Danes does very well with the tricky accents of the before and after Eliza. It is, of course, a shame that the key scenes of Eliza's triumph at a Royal Ball (a classic treat of the justly admired George Cukor film, with Cecil Beaton's designs and costumes) are unseen in Shaw's version. Her after-party argument with Higgins, though, does give us the right amount of indignation and new-found self-confidence.
As proof of the age of the play, the ending may need a 21st century rewrite. As it is, instead of letting Higgin's win big (in the script) or even battle to a draw (as in the movie), this version speaks the lines, but leaves Higgins on stage alone with a dawning realization he may well have lost. A bit of a letdown after all the snappy to-and-fro.
Posted by netrc at December 5, 2007 02:18 PM