Broadway actor Patrick Sullivan doesn’t mince words when he talks about Professor Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady.”
“Higgins is a jerk,” says Sullivan, who will star as the good professor in “My Fair Lady,” on May 5-6 in Savannah Center. Maestro Bill Doherty will present the show at 2 and 7 p.m. each day. Samantha Geraci-Yee plays Eliza Doolittle and another Broadway actor – Will Mulligan – plays Col. Pickering. Joe Rose is Alfred Doolittle and Rhonda Howard plays Mrs. Higgins.
Sullivan is an accomplished Broadway veteran who has appeared in major roles with such shows as “42nd Street,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Titanic.”
Sullivan has also performed in many national and international tours. He has played the part of Higgins in touring productions of George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” which is the basis for “My Fair Lady.”
Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe turned it into a 1956 hit Broadway musical starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Then came a 1964 movie starring Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.
“My Fair Lady” is now the stuff of theatrical legend, but one thing about the production hasn’t changed: the snobby, chauvinistic, domineering personality of Higgins. He’s the English language master who transforms Eliza Doolittle from a flower girl into a lady.
Or, as Sullivan says: “He turns the girl into the woman he wants her to be. People think it is sweet, but, in my opinion, that’s not what Shaw had in mind.
“Higgins takes a woman and makes her ‘proper’ for him. It happens to people when they fall in love. You make the person you love, the person you want them to be. But that’s not the person you fell in love with.”
In other words, you can teach someone to talk nice and act proper but as the trash-talking masses might say, “that ain’t gonna make you happy, pal.”
Shaw, speaking through Eliza, put it this way: “the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
“That line really stands out for me,” said Samantha Geraci-Yee, who plays Eliza. “She is a woman who wants to improve herself and is looking to Higgins to help her. Instead, Higgins turns her into a puppet and a robot. Finally, she develops some backbone and stands up to him.”
Geraci-Yee, a classically trained opera singer, calls this the most challenging theatrical role of her career. “It’s so different for me because I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve watched film of Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn. I’m learning as much as I can and Patrick Sullivan has been a tremendous help to me. He has done so much on Broadway and he has been an inspiration for me.”
Bill Doherty agreed.
“It’s a thrill to have Patrick in the leading role and stage director,” Doherty said. “He brings a wealth of professional experience as a seasoned Broadway actor. It thrills me to bring such a high-quality, professional show to The Villages.”
Sullivan stresses that this “My Fair Lady” is true to the Shaw play, rather than the stage and movie production. “We’re doing a play with music in it,” he said. “There will be some surprises but all the great songs are in it.”
The score includes: “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “With A Little Bit of Luck,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “Get Me To the Church On Time” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”
“I love the sentiment of that song,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also notes this is a “paired down” version of “My Fair Lady,” saying: “We don’t have a huge cast. But the music, and this play are so special. People will love Eliza’s costumes.”
People may also find some room in their hearts for some kind thoughts for Professor Higgins. Like him or not, Higgins has been one of the most enduring characters in musical theater.
‘He’s a hypocrite, but he admits it,” Sullivan said, adding that Higgins, despite his feeling of class superiority, sings, “I’m Just An Ordinary Man.”
Sullivan also claims that Higgins also “treats everyone the same,” from the flower girls to the swells. Higgins’ lasting popularity may be due to Rex Harrison creating a lovable but flawed character, Sullivan indicated.
“I think Shaw wrote this play from a woman’s standpoint,” Sullivan said. Higgins, he added, has a narrow view that we all should aspire to speak the same and belong to same social hierarchy.
“Eliza shows him that we are all human beings with a soul,” Sullivan said.
Shaw put it this way: “Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all women love to be mastered, if not actually bullied and beaten.”
Take that, ‘Enery ‘Iggins.
