It isn’t always so loverly when classes clash, but My Fair Lady — which returns to Arena Stage this month — puts a song in even the poor man’s step when “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.”
My Fair Lady (a musical) follows the transformation of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (played by Manna Nichols making her Arena debut) into an aristocratic Lady through lessons in manners, language and dress from Benedict Campbell, who reprises his role as Henry Higgins.
Though the play has ‘often walked this street stage before,’ Arena’s fresh interpretation for 2012 has a familiar story taking on new set and design.
“Great musicals, like great plays, demand to be reinterpreted for each generation,” explains Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith. “My Fair Lady is a potent story about class, and in a world increasingly blown apart by the dynamics of the very rich and the very poor, this musical hits the sweet spot of our current awareness of class.”
After all, ‘the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated.‘
A time tested tale, My Fair Lady runs at Arena Stage’s Fichandler Stage November 2, 2012-January 6, 2013.
*Photo by Scott Suchman
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