“MY FAIR LADY” IS STUNNING PERFECTION

For decades “My Fair Lady” by Lerner and Loewe has been hailed as one of the most remarkable musicals ever created and this week you have the awesome opportunity to visit the newly produced Lincoln Center Theater’s beautiful and thrilling new revival. From Tuesday, March 8 to Sunday, March 13, Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Arts will introduce you to a simple flower girl Eliza Doolittle and the experiment she becomes with a linguistics professor. Come make the acquaintance of Professor Henry Higgins (Laird Mackintosh) of 27A Wimpole Street, London, England who is confident, arrogant and supremely knowledgeable about phonetics and languages. He is equal parts curmudgeon and charmer. When his colleague Colonel Pickering, (Kevin Pariseau), challenges him to take a Cockney flower girl, a guttersnipe, and in six months time transform her into a duchess, the egotistical Higgins can’t resist. Such is the delightful premise of this classic family musical “My Fair Lady,” originally based on George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion.” This scalawag of a professor plucks a “squashed cabbage leaf,” a piece of “baggage,” namely one Miss Eliza Doolittle, off the London streets where she is innocently trying to sell her violets and posies and earn an honest shilling or three. Shereen Afmed's Eliza is “loverly,” dirty face, scruff and all and she rises beautifully to the task, under Higgins’ tutelage. Despite the interfering of Eliza’s old dad, (Martin Fisher), Eliza manages to win the favor of Henry’s mama (Leslie Alexander), his housekeeper (Gayton Scott) and a socialite admirer Freddy (Sam Simahk) who serenades her with the lilting melody “On the Street Where You Live.” The music is spot-on marvelous from Eliza’s daydreaming “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” to her papa’s ruminating “With a Little Bit of Luck” to Higgins’ observations in “I’m an Ordinary Man” to Eliza’s “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Each one is a gem. Bartlett Sher gets full credit for a smashing sensation of a show, with sophisticated choreography by Christopher Gattelli, enchanting costuming by Catherine Zuber and thoroughly top notch sets by Michael Yeargan. For tickets ($42 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue at 860-987-5900 or go online to www.bushnell.org. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.and 6:30 p.m. Remember to bring proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test and a mask. Dance all the way to the box office and purchase a little bit of theatrical heaven, with a flower cart full of glorious music, a brilliant professor and his deliciously fair lady of a pupil.There are a multitude of reasons why this musical that began 66 years ago, won 6 Tony Awards and played originally for over 2500 performances is still worthy of bouquets of applause today.