I must say, I felt the opposite of you regarding the lead performances. I found Hadden-Paton to be quite a wonderful Huggins. He made me laugh, and I thought he portrayed someone who thought of this young girl as a toy to be played with - until he suddenly realized she was, in fact, a person in her own right. Ambrose, to me, was too soft and warm hearted throughout the piece. I get any fire from her at all. She sounded fine to me, but I wasn't thrilled with the singing. To be honest, I would rather have seen her in a production of Pygmalion than My Fair Lady. And while you focused on the leads, I would add that I felt Norbert Leo Butz was in a totally different show than anyone else. He was doing a musical comedy, and the others were treating it as though it were a play. I found his two songs to be long and uninteresting, especially Get Me To The Church, which seemed to go on and on and featured chorepgraphy that was just inane to me.
I had lots of trouble with the direction of the piece - placing someone looking at a street address while asking where it is, too many people standing at the front of the stage just so they could turn their backs to most of the house, the ball gown entrance staged behind a couch. Many of the people around me were quite pleased at the end - and I enjoyed myslef - but, the one thing we all were talking about and no one could figure out - why did she have to exit through the house at the end? Why does Sher have her leaving the world of the play? |
