• My Not-So-Fair Lady, Part 2, 4/25/18 (Tues)

Eliza Doolittle is now officially woke, going by the reviews of Bartlett Sher’s just opened revival of My Fair Lady. The newly conceived ending, as gleaned from spoilers (not to be revealed here), has the former flower girl breaking decisively from her mentor Higgins and going off on her own. No suggestion of romantic love or tolerance for human quirks as in the original musical. That would undoubtedly have pleased the resolutely feminist George Bernard Shaw, who insisted to the end that Eliza would never have returned to Higgins after she has become an independent woman. (In the final scene of Pygmalion, the basis for the musical, Higgins commands Eliza to go buy him a pair of gloves, at which she snaps, “Buy them yourself”, and leaves angrily.) That said, Shaw’s own actors in the original stage show and the producers of the film version, to his fury, all altered the ending without his permission to hint at a budding love affair. So any change back to Shaw’s original concept would be swimming against a long established tide.

But maybe not these days. Continue reading →