Back To The Future

The Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre’s version of “My Fair Lady” doesn’t open until tonight, but you might say the sneak preview of this show took place nine years ago.

In August 1991, the same two leads Jack Bannon and Tamara Schupman played Prof. Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. Both proved to be ideal for their roles. The result was a major hit for the CdA Summer Theatre.

So this version should be just as good, right?

Not necessarily. Bannon, for one, is confident it will be better.

“Hopefully, this will be a lot different production this time, if only because instead of seven volunteers in the orchestra pit, all doing it for the love of it, there are 20 musicians in the pit, all professionals,” said Bannon. “Also, there will be microphones so you can actually hear the actors.”

This was, in fact, one of the few problems with that 1991 production. But the CdA Summer Theatre has come a long way since those days. The orchestra and sound system have been vastly improved, and so has the quality of the set design. Peter Hardie, the set design wizard of the Spokane Civic Theatre, has devised the oh-so-English set for this production.

This show also promises to have a stronger supporting cast, with Patrick Treadway as Col. Pickering and William C. Marlowe as Alfred P. Doolittle. Both are on the short list of Spokane’s most talented actors.

Finally, as Bannon pointed out, there should be one other difference with this production.

“I’m older this time and I should be able to bring some different things to the performance,” he said. “It’s a very tricky part and he is not a very likable character.”

Likable or not, Prof. Henry Higgins is one of George Bernard Shaw’s most vivid creations, although Eliza Doolittle may in fact be even more vivid. The story began in 1913 as “Pygmalion,” one of Shaw’s greatest comedies, about a professor of linguistics who takes it upon himself to prove that he can convert a flower girl into an upper-class lady merely by teaching her a new accent. Its adaptation as a musical took several decades and a lot of aggravation.

In fact, Rex Harrison, the original Prof. Higgins, announced just hours before the New Haven preview that he hated his part, hated the show, and hated musicals in general. The famously temperamental Harrison could barely be persuaded to leave his dressing room.

He finally did, of course, and the results were astounding. When Harrison, Robert Coote as Pickering and the Julie Andrews as Eliza finished their “Rain in Spain” number, the audience went berserk.

“The hysteria continued unabated, Harrison and Coote sitting in frozen astonishment; nothing like this happened in drawing room comedy,” wrote Steven Suskin in his book “Opening Night on Broadway.” “Finally, Miss Andrews who at 20 already knew her way around grabbed her colleagues by the elbows, dragged them down to the apron, and led them in a bow.”

When the show arrived on Broadway in March 1956, the “Rain in Spain” number wowed the critics, too.

“When Mr. Harrison bounces irresistibly to the center of the stage and begins to kick out a tango rhythm to the sounds Eliza has just made, there is no controlling the joy in the theater,” wrote Walter Kerr of the Herald Tribune. “Indeed, very little of the number was heard last night: The audience erupted right along with the characters.”

The show received raves from all seven major New York critics, one of whom had the foresight to pronounce it “a legendary evening.”

With songs such as “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church On Time” and “On the Street Where You Live,” it is now considered one of a handful of musicals that other musicals must be measured by.

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON STAGE `My Fair Lady’ Opens tonight at the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre and continues Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Aug. 24, 25 and 26. All shows are at 8 p.m., except the Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for juniors, available by calling (800) 4-CDA-TIX or (208) 769-7780. All shows are at North Idaho College’s Boswell Hall.