‘My Fair Lady’ signs on in Summerlin

Marilyn LaRocque

Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 8:07 a.m.

What: "My Fair Lady" by Signature Productions.

When: 7:30 p.m. Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. matinee April 24; through May 1.

Where: Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center, 1771 Inner Circle Drive.

Tickets: $12-$20.

Information: (702) 878-7529.

Rating (out of five stars): ****

Signature Productions stages yet another success at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center with its current show, the legendary "My Fair Lady," with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.

The original musical opened on March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York. It ran for 2,717 performances over nine years. The blockbuster, multiple Oscar-winning film followed in 1964.

Rex Harrison played the self-important, self-satisfied Professor Henry Higgins in both productions. Julie Andrews was Eliza onstage, but Audrey Hepburn was named for the movie part, causing considerable controversy.

Unlike Harrison, Hepburn didn't win an Oscar. Andrews did for the title role in "Mary Poppins."

But back to Summerlin ...

Signature bills itself as being "quality family entertainment." It is. Toddlers, teens, parents and grandparents enjoyed a fresh, entertaining and frequently boisterous evening of great musical theater enhanced by handsome sets, props and costumes acquired from the Fullerton (Calif.) Civic Light Opera.

The well-known plot drawn from George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" focuses on Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl with a caterwauling voice. Higgins, a speech expert, declares that, with six months of training, he can transform Eliza into someone who can pass as a duchess.

When a professional colleague, Col. Pickering, bets he cannot do it, Higgins accepts the challenge. Eliza moves into the professor's home, and he begins a relentless education of the "guttersnipe."

Higgins wins the bet and, ultimately, Eliza, but not without confrontations and crises.

Directed by Leslie Fotheringham, the cast captivates the audience. Even with faux English accents, some with outrageous Cockney twangs, the actors enunciate every word and lyric with impeccable clarity that can be understood in the last row, an absolute essential for enjoying the intelligent wit of the play.

The ensemble singers and dancers are exceptional and execute Chrissy Wright's well-staged choreography with enthusiasm and energy. The male vocal quartet of Matt Avery, Lance Earl, Dennis Fotheringham and Max Scholer has the resonant harmony blend of a barbershop group.

However, it is Sandra Huntsman's show. As Eliza, she's spunky and assertive, using facial expressions, expressive gestures and body English to complement and represent her role. Her ear-grating speaking voice and accent perfectly portray her lower-class origin yet transition gracefully, and believably, into upper-class English as she transforms into a lady and masters the signature phrase, "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain."

Whether raucous or refined, she sings up a storm, with a clear, expressive, full voice. Her rendition of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" captured her modest flower vendor goals in life with a wistful, yet optimistic, outlook.

When Professor Higgins has exasperated her with his incessant demands for practicing her speech technique, she vows to get even in the humorously vengeful "Just You Wait" ('enry 'iggins). At the other end of the musical spectrum, after Higgins praises her accomplishments and dances with her, she sings a charming, euphoric "I Could Have Danced All Night."

Gary Lunn is a somewhat soft-edged, rumpled, rather than haughty and imperious, Professor Higgins. Lyle Fisher as Col. Pickering is a likeable chap, good-hearted and protective of Eliza. They both sing-speak their songs in an acceptable style. Lunn is at his best in "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."

Dr. Karl Larsen, the show's producer and president and founder of Signature Productions, romps through the role of Eliza's father, drunken dustman Alfred P. Doolittle. His "Get Me to the Church on Time" is a showstopper, as his drinking buddies carry him around flat on his back over their heads as he holds a stalk of lilies in his hands.

Unfortunately, one of the loveliest songs in "My Fair Lady" rests with the wrong voice. Josh Meurer as Freddy Eynsford Hill, Eliza's lovelorn suitor, attacks "On the Street Where You Live" as if it were a march instead of a ballad. His voice charges along, rather than soars.

However, he's a good comic foil for Eliza in "Show Me," when she rebels against all the talk she's heard from everyone and wants some action if he loves her.

Gloria Hoffman as Professor Higgins' house manager and Susan Lowe in the role of his mother are warm and spirited in their parts and not intimidated by the Professor. They handle him with perceptive understanding and backbone.

The sour note of the production is the unbalanced, sometimes shrill and screechy, often overpowering orchestra led by musical director Shauna Oblad. The pounding "now hear me" style of the keyboardist is particularly aggravating. Considering the overall excellence of the cast, they deserve better in the orchestra pit.