“Pull out the stopper, Shaw has a whopper. Another dusty old classic in this season’s Festival offerings is given a grand and loverly treatment.”

After a series of hit-or-miss ho-hum musicals over the past several seasons, Shaw Festival undoubtedly had high hopes for this season’s big show. I can attest that this “Lady” easily eclipses them all with this nuanced musical retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, a thoroughly entertaining romp through class-conscious Edwardian England, complete with the sexist and abusive themes central to its plot.

About those dated mores?

Who cares?

That was 1912. This is 2024.

Forget about the hot-button social issues; you can enjoy this battle of the sexes by sitting back and being charmed by catchy and appealing songs like "With a Little Bit of Luck," "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" and "Get Me to the Church on Time." Mix in stellar performances and some high-energy and elegant dance numbers, and you’ve got a not-to-be-missed summer hit.

I'll remind you if you don’t know the plot (made into a movie in 1938 and later became 1964’s Academy Award-winning film).

Pompous phonetics professor Henry Higgins (a brilliant Tom Rooney) is so sure of his abilities that he takes it upon himself to bet his friend, Colonel Pickering, (amiably played by André Morin), that he will transform a Cockney working-class girl and “shall make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe” in “six months.” He dithers in his attitudes towards everyone, spewing vitriol about the women in his life and calling himself “an ordinary man” with “the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein.” He's a contradiction in terms.

The subject of this bet turns out to be the feisty but captivating Eliza Doolittle (a wondrous Kristi Frank). She is unaware of the bet and takes Higgins up on the offer to better her job prospects; she dreams of owning a flower shop. Higgins and Eliza clash but then form an unlikely bond, one threatened by an unlikely suitor, Freddy (a fine Taurian Teelucksingh).

The challenge of resurrecting any age-old production is figuring out how to make it relevant and/or engaging to a modern audience.

Yes, there are many challenges to this production, namely Higgins’ treatment of Eliza. His contemptuous, demeaning remarks and haughty, overbearing comportment garnered more than a few audience giggles at the performance my companion and I attended. There isn't an awful lot to like or appreciate about Henry initially, as he urges his housekeeper to thrash Eliza if she doesn't conform. Henry's insistence on ridicule and humiliation as a form of improving a student seems more insulting and grating than enlightening.

But that’s just it, they were giggles at all of this, squeals of delight, not gasps or whispers.

Higgins’ rudeness only seems to empower Eliza. But despite the splendid songs, there’s a certain amount of sadness in watching Eliza, initially so defiant, start to conform to Henry, first by finally breaking through her accent and adopting the more sophisticated one that Henry prefers, then beginning to fall in love with the man who spent so much time denigrating her. Similarly, Higgins realizes he’s affected by her, not quite knowing how to process his newfound emotions. This is where co-directors Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersad (who also provides the spirited choreography) cleverly give us a relatable battle of wits “girl power” story involving two characters who are ultimately more alike than they know – fiery, blunt, opinionated, tenacious.

In the program notes, Carroll admits to being a first-time director of a musical. His work with Rampersad is to be applauded. Scene transitions were magically immaculate, and blocking was natural, with clever use of every inch of stage space. Carroll and Rampersad wisely don’t forget that characters need dimension. They’ve taken the time to work scenes, build song rendering and intent, and understand what drives and motivates key players. They can be very proud of their partnership.

Musical direction by Paul Sportelli is spot-on, his baton leading a dynamite pit band. Voices are strong and blend well. Lorenzo Savoini’s simple yet elegant set effortlessly shows us class mobility, from the grimy dregs of the London slums to Higgins’ opulent, two-story library. From the spartan Ascot races to an old wooden pub, we see life from both sides of privilege. Joyce Padua’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century costume design is stunning and captures both the extravagant and the drab. The highly stylized women’s hats at the Ascot races are a feast for the eyes, while the attire of the working class in Covent Garden is dirty, ripped and coated in coal dust.

Kimberley Rampersad’s choreography was basic and in unison, serving the narrative well, but overall, some excitement was missing. There’s a very fine trio of male dancers in the opening street scene who kick and leap beautifully, but their sequences are all too short. They dance again throughout the show but for mere seconds only. I wanted more! Her couple’s waltz was elegant and refined, but her “I’m Getting Married in the Morning”, while lively, lacked full-out exuberance. Not sure about the motivation of the sudden appearance of those four can-can dancers.

Mikael Kanga’s lighting does a fine job of establishing location and mood. His warm, amber side lighting in the Covent Garden scenes evokes fire and gas-lit streets while Higgin’s library is bright and airy. Lighting designers need to show me where to look in a scene. Kanga delivers with well-placed spots on key players while subtly dimming the rest of the scene when needed. Fine work. Using the rear wall for projections or simply silhouette performers wonderfully enhances the visuals. John Lott’s sound design is apt, although the Ascot horse races were strangely quiet, while the band sometimes overpowered vocals in the more significant numbers.

One of the many marks of sound direction and performance is seeing the journey the main characters take throughout the show. They are affected by the events of the piece and should, resultantly, be transformed by the show’s end. Tom Rooney brilliantly embodies Higgins’ character arch, first seeing Eliza as a project to be discarded, then softening his disdain for her while uneasily processing his growing affection for her. He has lovely moments of subtlety and nuance, especially in the ball scene, where he shares some truly touching moments with Eliza. As one of the main characters, he sets a beautiful pace in all his scenes with clear, snappy dialogue and marvellous vocals. Unhappily, that pace was interrupted mere moments before intermission as a fire alarm forced a mass exodus. False alarm. All was back on track for the second act.

Kristi Frank is a fine Eliza with a good handle on the motives and situations that drive her character. Her heavenly soprano in songs like “I Could Have Danced All Night” attests that her voice is meant for this score. But it’s her journey from an uneducated, rough-around-the-edges “guttersnipe” flower seller to rising, independent “duchess…in six months” which is a treat to watch. Her physical countenance transforms in sync with her “proper” (and authentic) British accent - straight, poised and endearing. She, too, has beautiful levels as her relationship with Higgins burgeons. She comes into her own and knows who she is by show’s end.

André Morin plays a compassionate Colonel Pickering, taking pity on Eliza rather than dismissing her. At the same time, as housekeeper Mrs. Pearce, Patty Jamieson is a charming and compassionate mother figure to Eliza and tolerates Higgins’ idiosyncrasies. She also does double duty, playing the Queen of Transylvania, and has a royal air in both roles. As Mrs. Higgins, Sharry Flett is hilarious and delightful, sarcastically knocking her son down a few notches over his overbearing pomposity. David Adams is deliciously bombastic as Eliza’s insouciant drunkard of a father, Alfred P. Doolittle. Although Doolittle is egocentric with feigned fatherly affection only to line his pockets, Adams nonetheless brings an endearing, heartwarming and fun performance to his big numbers. We should hate this guy, but we don’t.

As starstruck Loverboy, Freddy, Taurian Teelucksingh is a powerful crooner, all doe-eyed and giddy in his school-boy infatuation with Eliza, although seeing him notice her more at the beginning of the show may have given them a nice moment.

The ending is left ambiguous—a wise choice by Carroll and Rampersad.

This is one slick show, just the hit Shaw needs right now. As I perused the directors’ notes, Kimberley Rampersad sums it up nicely: "Sometimes even singing isn’t enough, and you need to dance.”

You’ll want to dance all night after leaving this show.

Running time: approx. 3 hours with two 15-minute intermissions.

The production runs until December 22 at the Festival Theatre, 10 Queen’s Parade Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON L0S 1J0 For tickets, call the Box Office at 1-800-511-7429 or visit shawfest.com

The Shaw Festival Presents Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady”
Co-directed by Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersad
Choreographed by Kimberley Rampersad
Music Direction by Paul Sportelli
Set designed by Lorenzo Savoini
Costumes designed by Joyce Padua
Lighting designed by Mikael Kangas
Sound designed by John Lott

Starring: Tom Rooney, Kristi Frank, André Morin, David Adams plus many other Canadian artists in the ensemble.