ATHOL — “My Fair Lady” is like an enduring confection. It may contain a questionable ingredient, but you sure hope they don’t stop making it.
A pair of Athol High School teachers have decided to take on the whole toffee pudding — in the spirit of introducing students to a theatrical “classic,” and encouraging their rise to its musical challenges. The students had been unfamiliar with the beloved Lerner & Loewe musical, says first-year director, and art teacher, Aric Davis, of his choice for this year’s Spring play. And the “old school” show tunes, as well, have felt foreign to the present-day highschoolers, says Musical Director Brian Hicks who, in his first year teaching at Athol High, joins Davis in directorial debut.
The opening night curtain rises on Edwardian London this Friday evening at 7 o’clock in the school auditorium, with two additional shows to follow on Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door at $5 for adults and $3 for students.
Sophomore Isabella McDonald will take to the stage as Cockney waif Eliza Doolittle, and junior Anthony Marcucci as elocutionist Henry Higgins, who bets friend Colonel Pickering, played by sophomore Aidan Needle, that he can refine his ragamuffin specimen, Eliza, beyond recognition. The tale of classism, personal growth and the human heart is rendered both buoyant and poignant as it traverses from musical signpost to signpost with “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “With A Little Bit of Luck,” “The Rain In Spain” “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” and more.
In all, this production features a student cast of 10 girls and 10 boys and a crew of five girls. Enlistees from the Orange Community Band and the Greenfield Community Band, as well as one student musician, will play in the pit band of eight.
Hicks describes the music as “definitely classical-musical” fare that is “vocally and rhythmically challenging.” … an unfamiliar “old school” tune stack up which the persevering young performers have made their ascent. And Davis, in a similar nod to student potential, says he could “see all of the talent come in” from the ambitious project’s very start in January.
Davis’s efforts, and intentions, have emphasized the play’s “good message about education opening doors” and about “growth” and less so, he says, that sticky element of the “period piece.” … namely Eliza’s return to the presumedly redeemed Higgins and his — however feigned in the end — demeaning blustering. The questionability of the dated “happy” ending, Davis notes, was not lost on the leading lady in her characterization study.
Nevertheless, Davis rightly reminds that the play remains a “comedy” classic. It is based on the play Pygmalion, written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (whose wife, on a perhaps ironic note, is biographized as a women’s rights crusader.) Shaw’s play premiered in 1913 in Vienna. “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway in 1956. With book and lyrics written by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, it went on to win countless awards in a record-breaking run.
Now, bravely stepping up to revive a generations-old show that is new to them are 25 very young locals — yet not much younger than Eliza Doolittle herself.