Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies), McHugh, Dominic [fantasy books to read TXT] 📗

tells us (in RS alone) that “Even in my sleep I’m thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. I’m worn out thinking about her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.” Most of this comes from Shaw, but—significantly—Lerner replaces Shaw’s “As if I ever stop thinking about the girl” with “Even in my sleep…”47 That Higgins’s nights are absorbed in thinking about Eliza, coupled with the sensuous language he uses to talk about her lips, teeth, and tongue, signifies an infatuation that does not stop at intellectual intrigue.

The replacement scene still touches lightly on the status of the Higgins-Eliza relationship, but Pickering is instantly dismissive of the idea of romance between the two when Mrs. Higgins asks if it is a love affair: “Heavens no! She’s a flower girl. He picked her up off the kerbstone” (72). This encounter increases the ambiguity of the relationship between Eliza and Higgins because Pickering, who lives with both of them, does not seem to have detected a romance. Nevertheless, his comment does not rule anything out, muddying the waters brilliantly.

Freddy

Another character whose personality was modified is Freddy. His main function in the Ascot scene is to provide Eliza with the bet on Dover, the horse that will bring about the memorable climax to the sequence. In PS he does this fairly discreetly, merely informing Eliza that he has a bet and offering it to her. However, in RS he is given a prominent entrance (RS, 1-7-55). When he arrives holding a ticket, his mother pounces on him and says: “You know you can’t afford it, dear.” He replies that he “had to” because the odds were “too good to resist.” In this original formulation, Freddy is depicted as a compulsive gambler. As the musical evolved, Freddy increasingly became the polar opposite of Higgins, so that the Eliza-Higgins-Freddy love triangle had a stronger dynamic. Arguably, the idea that Freddy is the sort of person who gambles for thrills and cannot resist the odds on Dover makes him a risk taker and a more masculine, virile character. Therefore, it is easy to see why Lerner removed this element of Freddy’s personality and made him into a faithful but dull lover for Eliza.

His role in act 2 was similarly adjusted: his speech leading into the verse of “Show Me” was originally longer, including the lines “You’re beautiful and delicate and warm and desirable. Every night I look up at these very stars and dream of being near you. Eliza, you don’t know how potty I am about you” (RS, 2-2-12). It fits into the overall remodeling of Freddy’s character that this was removed; the rhetoric of “beautiful and delicate and warm and desirable” shows a sensibility far more intensely romantic than Freddy is ultimately capable of, while his nightly dreams of being “near” Eliza insinuate a potent sexuality that is incoherent with the rest of his behavior. Here, we can see once and for all how Lerner watered down Freddy’s personality to render him an impossible choice of suitor for Eliza, thereby introducing the parting of ways with the published epilogue to Pygmalion, in which the two are united in marriage.

Intensifying the Higgins-Eliza Relationship

The final three scenes of act 1 underwent the largest number of changes during rehearsals and previews, especially scene 9 of RS, which takes place “simultaneously with the preceding scene” (that is, at the same time as “On the Street Where You Live”) and shows us the aftermath of the Ascot scene. As the curtain rises, we see Mrs. Pearce comforting Eliza who, significantly, says, “I failed him.” As before, this makes the emotional connection between Eliza and Higgins stronger and gives her the air of someone who has failed the man she loves. The rest of the scene involves three musical numbers: “Come to the Ball,” in which Higgins seductively persuades Eliza to return to her lessons; the ballet, in which she receives dancing instruction, better posture, a cosmetician, and “the best hairdresser in London” (1-9-66); and “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight,” in which Eliza tells the servants of her anxieties.

Lerner’s solution to the need to replace this long sequence of music with something much shorter—and in the process, go back to the original scenario for the scene as described in Outline 1—changed several emphases. Scene 9 of PS takes place “six weeks later” than the Ascot scene, whereas RS places the races in July and the ball in October. Therefore, Higgins’s work has involved much more pressure in the final version, giving him only a few weeks rather than a quarter of a year. Furthermore, although we perhaps lose out by not witnessing the pain gone through to complete Eliza’s education, the status of the Eliza-Higgins relationship is kept far more consistent by removing all flagrant suggestions of their emotional attachment. A subtle but important gesture is added, however. Eliza arrives at the top of the stairs in her gown; Pickering says that she looks beautiful, and then goes on to prompt Higgins to agree with him. According to the stage directions, “Eliza turns to Higgins hopefully,” and Higgins, “having decided the gown is quite all right,” declares that it is “Not bad at all” (91). Eliza’s “hopefulness” is the salient point here, replacing the spoken line in RS about having failed him with the implication that she has dressed beautifully for him. Then come two of the most resounding gestures in the musical. First, having refused Pickering’s offer of port a couple of minutes previously, implying that he is not nervous about the ball, Higgins “looks furtively around to make certain Pickering doesn’t see him” and “pours himself a quick glass of port.” In itself this shows a more human side to Higgins, but what follows is even more surprising. As he starts for the door, “he pauses, turns and gazes at Eliza. He returns to her and offers his arm.