Theater Review: ‘Pygmalion’ goes in search of subtext

“Pygmalion” was George Barnard Shaw’s unromantic basis for the romantic 1956 Lerner and Loewe musical, “My Fair Lady.” It starred Julie Andrews as Cockney guttersnipe Eliza and Rex Harrison as the phonetics professor, who, on a bet, schools Eliza into passing for one of the upper class. The musical was later incarnated, of course, as the frothy 1964 film classic with Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.

It is unlikely that Shaw, who was adamant that audiences not expect Eliza and Professor Higgins to marry, would approve of the deliberate, if not consummated, sexual tension between the two in director Jessica Kubzansky’s new staging of the play at the Pasadena Playhouse. Indeed, the playwright, pressured by the public, wrote at length in an essay that was both scathing commentary and epilogue to make clear why a Henry Higgins-Eliza Doolittle union would never happen.

As staged through an audacious lens by Kubzansky, co-artistic director of the Theatre @ Boston Court, even Higgins’ persuasion of Eliza to let him take over her life plays as seduction. Although that overt element never quite gels into convincing chemistry, it could imply an artificial opening, as in the Lerner and Loewe musical, for a happily-ever-after, but it turns out that Kubzansky has something else in mind.

The production over all, however, is a slow-starter. As Eliza, Paige Lindsey White, a masterful Henry Bolingbroke in “R II,” Kubzansky’s remarkable adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Richard II,” seems initially at a loss, missing the mark in her attempt at the Cockney squawk that sets the stage for what is to come. After a disjointed first act and well into the second, the dynamic shifts into an entertaining higher gear with the give-and-take of Shaw’s memorably pointed and comical repartee. And, with her increasing layers of vulnerability and self-realization, White’s Eliza, matched against Bruce Turk’s enjoyable if often too-broad infant terrible Higgins, comes into sharp focus.

Among the rest of the cast, Stan Egi shows his discomfort with Colonel Pickering’s age and accent, and Carolyn Ratteray’s Clara, the sister of nice, vacuous Freddy (Alex Knox), never quite claims credible ground. Mary Anne McGarry, Higgins’ mother, strikes the right notes of genteel exasperation and keen-eyed observation; Ellen Crawford’s performance as Higgins’ long-suffering housekeeper, and Time Winters’ as Alfred P. Doolittle, bemoaning his rise from “undeserving poor” to middle-class morality, are decided highlights.

The industrial, steam-punkish look of Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s artful set (metal circular stairs, support poles and upper level walkway) reflects the play’s still-contemporary issues of female oppression and economic divide. (Doolittle’s line “I have to dye my hair already to keep my job as a dustman,” written between 1912 and 1913, has a startling 21st-century ring to it as well.) A projection of torrents of words pouring over the set, an arresting effect, accompanied by barely heard whispers in the ether, has resonant intent, too, as a related commentary on our language-altering age of digital communication.

Leah Piehl’s Edwardian-style costumes, meanwhile — a sumptuous, well-draped eyeful of lace, silk and satin — suggest societal constraints imposed on both sexes in touches of black leather, the restrictive corsets and high-standing collars.

In the end, Kubzansky honors Shaw’s door-closed finality for marriage between Henry and Eliza, but in Higgins’ reaction to that finality, she inserts her production’s most divergent, un-Shaw-like touch. Awkwardly realized in Turk’s performance, this strips away any possibility of perceived ambiguity, yet spells out an awareness of loss at odds with the playwright’s intent.

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What: “Pygmalion”

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Post-show “Talkback Tuesdays,” March 31, April 7. Ends April 12.

Tickets: $30 to $75; premium seating, $125.

More info: (626) 356-7529, www.pasadenaplayhouse.org

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LYNNE HEFFLEY writes about theater and culture for Marquee.