The Midnight Train Crossing

They didn't have a program yet, I guess we got it too early in the season for that, but I did get a pin. It's a lady wearing a flowered hat and it says "Loverly" on it.
As usual, I scanned the cast list, and as usual, I didn't see any names that I recognized. Ah well.

So anyway, the curtain was pretty, a collection of roses and when the show started, it was lit up from behind, casting a lot of shadows on it. I couldn't tell if the shadows were supposed to be there or not...

I thought the set was absolutely fantastic. My favorite part of the set was Henry Higgins' study. All of the walls were completely covered in bookshelves and there was a spiral staircase that led up to a second floor, really just a cat-walk that was also lined with books. There was just so much... stuff... in that room that it was impressive to me to watch it all go on and off of the stage rather seamlessly. (Yay for moving platforms). And also because I want a room like that, with floor to ceiling bookshelves.

Another good part of the set was Mrs Higgins' (Higgins' mother) conservatory. At least that's what I think it was, it was. The front part of the stage had wicker furniture and the rear part of the stage had a greenhouse type thing.

The scenes that took place outside of Higgins' house on the street had a nice set too. They brought down a backdrop painted with the street in the 3-D style that I forget what it's called, including the important door-way. The cool part about this was that the door to the apartment was actually a doorway, with a real door that opened.

Costumes were very nice too. There were lots of men in suits, which is always pleasing to the eyes. There were also lots of pretty dresses during two of the scenes in particular. In Eliza's first test run in polite society, Higgins' takes her to Ascot, a racetrack frequented by the upper class, and the ladies all had interesting dresses in various degrees of sparkliness but all in dark colors. And the hats were fantastic! The bigger and more covered with feathers and flowers the better.
Eliza came in wearing purple (in a dress that didn't quite fit because Higgins and Pickering had to guess the size) and the most ridiculous hat I had ever seen. It completely obscured one side of her face, which I could understand since her entrance was supposed to be mysterious, but it was just really silly. I wondered how it stayed on, and kept thinking about how impractical that hat would be... she couldn't see anything off to her right. But then again, maybe that was the point of it.

That whole scene at the race track was very amusing, especially the song "Ascot Gavotte" where the people in their fine clothes sing this song about how excited they are to be at the race track. When the race starts, they all stand there and watch the horses run past, motionless and silent, and then at the end of the race, they are all like "My that was an exciting race" in a tone that didn't convey excitement at all. It's prim and proper people being prim and proper while watching a sporting event, which is really funny. Everyone is being prim and proper... except for Eliza, who starts cheering and yelling at the horses.

The other scene that had really pretty dresses was the scene of the Embassy Ball. This totally makes sense, considering that it's... a ball. But anyway, once again there were lots of sparkly pretty dresses. There was one, worn by one of the ensemble girls that was really pretty in blue. That's very descriptive I know, but I would love to wear it.
Eliza's dress was very pretty too, all in white and sparkly.

Highlights in the cast were:

Colonel Hugh Pickering (Walter Charles) who was actually the first one to meet Eliza. He came across from India to meet Professor Higgins because he is also interested in linguistics. He serves to help provide plot exposition really, by giving Professor Higgins someone to talk to who is an equal, since Higgins looks down on Eliza so much. He also serves as Eliza's only ally in the house. As she describes him later, "He always treated a flower girl like a lady."
He doesn't sing a whole lot, only background in certain songs, but when he was singing along in "The Rain In Spain" where they are all excited because Eliza has finally learned to pronounce her "a's" correctly, he is bouncing around all over the place, jumping on the couch and pretending to be a castanet dancer. After that song is when Higgins decides to take Eliza out, which means she needs a dress, so he holds up some fabric to Pickering, trying to decide what sort of dress would be best for Eliza... using Pickering as a model.
Another great scene that he was in was when he was preparing Mrs Higgins for Eliza's arrival at the race track. Pickering was meant to tell her about how Higgins found Eliza and what they were doing, but it led over into the opera that Pickering wanted to see the night he met Eliza.
Mrs Higgins: "Are you telling me that there is a flower girl from the gutter living with my son and he's bringing her to my private box in Ascot?"
Pickering: "That's exactly right! You're hit it spot on!"
And that was the end of the conversation.
He's such a big dork and I adored him for it.

Mrs Higgins (Sally Ann Howes) was another character that I thought was really well done. She's Henry Higgins' mother, but she's nothing like her son at all. In fact, I don't think that she's especially pleased with how her son turned out. She says to Pickering that she didn't want Higgins to come to the race track because it's one of the few places that she can go and not see her son. It seems that whenever her son meets her friends, she never sees them again.
She's not entirely pleased with Higgins' experiment with Eliza, but she's nice enough to not take it out on Eliza. In fact, she seems to feel sorry for her. During the scene at the race track, she tries to help Eliza out, but she can't help the fact that even though Eliza speaks with the proper accent, the content of what she says isn't entirely polite conversation... talking about how her aunt died and how Eliza suspected that somebody "done her in."
Still, later on when Eliza runs away, Mrs. Higgins offers her shelter and is definitely on her side. When Higgins turns up looking for Eliza, Mrs. Higgins says that Eliza was well within her rights to run away. After all, Eliza ran away because after her success at the grand ball, nobody ever told her that she had done a good job. It was as if she had done nothing.
This scene also entertained me because Mrs. Higgins was talking to Eliza while Higgins was sulking around in the greenhouse in the background literally growling in frustration.
There is another excellent line in this scene when Mrs. Higgins' maid (Christine Negherbon) comes in and says that the vicar is here to visit and Mrs. Higgins says something to the effect of: "The vicar and Henry in the same room? I'll be excommunicated! Tell the vicar I'll meet him in the library" (instead of the garden).

Professor Zoltan Karparthy (John Paul Almon) was in one scene - the scene at the ball and I thought that he was greatly entertaining too. Higgins once taught him the trick of recognizing where people are from by their accents and now Zoltan uses it for his personal gain. He uses it to blackmail people who are pretending to be something that they are not. Higgins rather doesn't like him. He has a silly accent (supposed to be Hungarian) and he sort of... oozed around the stage in a somewhat villainous manner. Or at least he was trying to. But he was unable to guess that Eliza was a flower girl, although he did think that she was pretending to be something that she wasn't. The end of the Ball scene ends with him calling out that Eliza is a fraud.
But... later when Higgins is celebrating, he reveals what Zoltan thought Eliza was... a foreign princess, because her English was *too* good.

This scene where they were celebrating after the ball was neatly staged. The song is "You Did It" sung by Higgins, Pickering and Higgins' staff. They go on and on about how Higgins did such a great job turning Eliza into a lady while Eliza fades into the background. She did such a good job fading into the background that part way through the song I wondered if she had actually left the stage. I don't think she did because soon after I saw her standing in the corner in the shadows, so she must have been there all the time. I think that it's a great feat to hide someone in a white sparkly dress so completely in plain sight that I give a lot of credit to the person who staged that. It's also a pretty good contrast to the ball when she was the center of attention.

Another character that I liked was Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Justin Bohon) whose glorious entrance into the play is tripping over Eliza and ruining some of her flowers. He starts to pay for her, but his mother tells him not to, and he obeys, running off to find a cab. He is a pretty big idiot actually, but he's so cute that I forgive him. (That is, character and actor were both cute). He next turns up at the race track, where he is completely enraptured by Eliza and hangs on her every word. He laughs at some of the things she says, which confuses her because she thinks that she is speaking properly.
So Freddy starts calling on her, standing out in front of her house (Well... Higgins' house) and sending her flowers and love letters. While he's out there, he sings the last song of the first act, "On the Street where you live" . Basically that he likes her so much that he is content to just stand out on the street where she lives. And he had a very nice voice.
There's a bit of a funny scene before the song, when he is walking down the street and he flags down a policeman (David Abeles) and says "I know this is Wimpole Street, but can you tell me where 27A is?"
The policeman blinks and looks at him oddly, and then turns around and points to the house that they are standing in front of. "Its right here sir"
He is also the one that takes Eliza away when she runs away from Higgins and helps her go back to her old home, and then to Mrs. Higgins' house.
They don't end up together in the end, and but that scene isn't really shown. I guess I can't entirely complain that they didn't end up together because he really is an idiot, but he's a really cute one and was really fun to watch.

Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza's father, was played by Tim Jerome. He is, as he puts it, one of the undeserving poor. He spends all of his money on gin and girls and doesn't mind at all. When he hears that Eliza has gone off to live with Higgins, he shows up and says that he wants five pounds for her, which he intends to spend on a wild night with his mistress. He doesn't want more than that, for if he had that he would feel obligated to save it for something useful, and he doesn't want to do that. Higgins is so entertained by him that he gives him the five pounds and sends him off with his blessing.
He has two songs, "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me To the Church On Time" and he totally stole the show.
During "With a Little Bit of Luck" he sings about how "with a little bit o' luck" you can avoid doing the right thing. One of the lines that amused me from the song is "The Lord above made man to help his neighbor-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
When he comes around you won't be home!"
I did have a slight complaint about that song though. While Alfred was singing it, the other people in the background were making lots of noise clanging around on garbage can lids and such. It looked pretty cool; three of the guys had can lids on their feet and were banging around on them.
But between the orchestra and the clanging, it was almost impossible to hear a thing that Alfred was singing.

After impressing Higgins with his speech about the undeserving poor, Higgins sends Alfred off to a man in America who is looking for someone to give a lecture on morality. Turns out that Alfred was a big hit, and the rich American left him lots of money on the condition that he continue to give lectures. So now he's stuck being respectable because he has all of this money, and he's not brave enough to give it all up.
As Alfred is respectable now, his mistress wants to be as well, so Alfred has to do what he has been avoiding all his life - get married.
As such, he wants to enjoy his last night before getting married, so he and his friends go out and visit every bar and brothel they can find. He says that he will do anything that night, as long as they "Get [him] to the Church on time" - which his friends do. Even if it means carrying a very drunk Alfred off to the church.

Professor Higgins (Christopher Cazenove) is not a very kind-hearted man really. But as he tells Eliza, when he was rude to her she shouldn't get too offended because he is rude to everyone. He has a lot of songs, but my favorites were "Why Can't the English? [learn to speak]" where he goes on about how angry it makes him when people murder the English language. He says that in other countries, people learn to speak their native tongue properly, so why can't the English? According to him, they are the only place that English is spoken properly. ("In America, they haven't used it for years", which got a laugh) and his semi-ballad "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" where he declares that he doesn't *need* Eliza... of course he doesn't. But he keeps coming up with a list of reasons why he does, and why he misses her.
Higgins had quite a few good lines simply because he has a strange way of looking at the world and some interesting ideas of women.

Eliza (Lisa O'Hare) has been a person that I've been talking about a lot in the review so far, so I'm just going to add on the things about her that I haven't said yet. I like the song "Wouldn't it be Loverly" - the original song and the reprise. It's just a pretty song where she sings about what she wants out of life when she is with her friends. She wants a nice room where she can keep warm, a comfortable chair, a lot of chocolate, and someone to look after her and love her.
After she is a "lady" she goes back to her old friends, but now that she is dressed up and carries herself like a "lady" they don't recognize her. She softly sings the song again, remembering now what she always wanted.

I also like the song "I could have danced all night" because it is one of the songs that gets stuck in your head for days after. Interestingly, it's not dancing at the ball that she's singing about, it's the victory type dance that she does with Higgins after she finally learns how to say "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain" without her thick cockney accent.

The one thing that I had heard a lot about this show in the review that I read about it in the paper, and from other people that I know that saw it was that some of the dialogue was difficult to understand. Since the main point of this show is all about different British accents and how important they are in society, everyone had a thick British accent. (Granted, different types of accents, but none of them American). And sometimes, people were a little difficult to understand.
Still, that didn't detract too much away from the show. I just let the parts that I didn't understand slide past me and enjoyed the show.