Unregistered
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
Regretably Shaw's masterpiece has been distorted from it's original opening in 1913 to Lerner's musical by imposing a romance between Eliza and Higgins. This ruins Shaw's main thrust which was Eliza's realization tht she is a human being and not just an experiment, and therefore leaves an independent woman. Because the public would not accept the platonic ending, Shaw was forced to change the ending and marry her off to Freddie.<br>Despite this, actors and producers subverted the author's intent. Leslie Howard's version in 1938 and the musical which Hammerstein refused to adapt precisely because it was not a play condusive to a musical comedy. Higgins would never have married anybody, and Eliza certainly would not have married him or the immature Freddie. The play is in the first half a Cinderella story but without the happy ending. Best Eliza from all my research was Lynn Fontanne who performed it in 1921 through New York's Theater Guild. The worst was Uta Hagen who performed it in the 1940s.