“I mean no disrespect to Ambrose, who originated the role in this revival, to say that Benanti is a more effortless vocalist; she dispatches her very difficult and wide-ranging songs with glee...The show is lighter as a result, which is not to say it’s less compelling...But it is the recasting of the smallest principal role that makes the most touching difference, and like everything connected to Harris’s stage presence, her success as Mrs. Higgins cannot be pinned down.”
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"Sher is not an iconoclast or radical re-sculptor; instead, he acts as a restorer, leaving the shows on their pedestals but stripping off years of obscuration to reveal layers the works had possessed all along. So it is with the splendid new LCT revival...Sher is acutely alert to the shifts of balance within both 'My Fair Lady' itself and the way it plays to contemporary audiences, and nowhere is that clearer than in his clever solution to the show’s notoriously slippery ending."
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"A beloved musical from another era can keep on kicking, and, as is the case here, it can even do so without making radical shifts in aesthetic, as long as it’s got its eyes wide open...This production team knows what they’re making and when they’re making it...Yeargan’s dynamic set, combined with Ambrose’s beautifully calibrated performance, always makes us feel as if events—educational and emotional—are rushing forward."
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"Ambrose is a knockout and a wow...As for the production proper, nothing about it is surprising save for Mr. Sher’s staging of the final scene...This version works—up to a point...Mr. Hadden-Paton is competent but less than exciting as Professor Higgins...I was also taken aback by the blandness of Norbert Leo Butz’s performance as Alfred Doolittle...I enjoyed this revival very much, but I’d expected to be more wholehearted about it."
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"With Ambrose and Hadden-Paton, this 'My Fair Lady' seems at least a fair fight...Ambrose’s performance, a portrayal at times almost feral in its presentation of Eliza’s ambition...The actress gives the production the counterweight it needs to present a Higgins as undiluted as the one offered up by Hadden-Paton...Is it possible the entire affair is just all too tasteful?...A win achieved by smart stage directing and two finely matched performances...A relic, but it polishes nicely."
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"Both opulent and daring. But not every risk pays off equally...The show also jars. Primarily that’s due to casting a younger Henry Higgins and an older Eliza Doolittle...If the idea was to make the story that unfolds in 1913 London sexier, no such luck...Ambrose is marvelous start to finish...The large orchestra and original arrangements sound magnificent. The production is loverly...When all is said and sung and done, the show finds a conclusion to love."
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"This jubilant revival is meticulously mounted and entirely welcome – despite the eccentric casting choice of Lauren Ambrose as Eliza...As Lincoln Center productions go, this one, under Sher’s scrupulous direction, is among the more spectacular...There are things that could have been better managed...But we’re nit-picking here. With Lerner and Loewe’s soaring score and Sher’s respectful staging, a beloved show comes alive in all its glory to end the theater season on a high."
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"Sumptuous staging from Bartlett Sher, a director who has proved to be among the very best at chiseling surprising nuance out of vintage musicals. So why is the stately revival also a slight disappointment?...It's a polished production with an accomplished — if not spectacular — cast. But it doesn't come close to the sweeping cinematic fluidity of Sher's best work...I found Ambrose's unrefined Eliza squawky and charmless, blunting much of the early comedy."
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