In My Fair Lady Colonel Pickering sings to Professor Henry Higgins:
Tonight, old man, you did it!
You did it! You did it!
You did it! You did it!
You said that you would do it,
And indeed you did.
And indeed you did.
I thought that you would rue it;
I doubted you'd do it. But now I must admit it
That succeed you did . . .
I doubted you'd do it. But now I must admit it
That succeed you did . . .
Though at times I doubted I could, my husband said to me after every performance, "You did it."
And words from this song have run through my hat-less head for the past week.
Friends came from near and far to watch, Pat from Pampa and Jocelyn from Lubbock.
And Kathy from Amarillo. Thanks for the smiles, applause and affirmation. Guess I have yet to give up the performer's ghost.
After the Saturday matineé, local Red Hat Society women asked to have their picture taken with some of the cast members dressed in their costumes for the Ascot scene.
According to comments heard, when the curtain opened the audience gasped, stunned by the effect of seeing everyone dressed in black and white or gray, frozen in a pose to convey the sense of superiority of class distinction.
In fact, Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw http://www.bartleby.com/138/, the play brilliantly adapted by Alan J. Lerner (lyrics) and Frederick Lowe (music) as My Fair Lady shows how language elevates. Persons trapped in an otherwise rigid social web can through educated language increase their opportunities to enjoy a better life.
"I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road," Eliza said. "But they won't take me unless I can talk more genteel…"
"… It's almost irresistible. She's so deliciously low––so horribly dirty!" Higgins says when he decides to take Pickering's bet. "I'll take it! I'll make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe."
And he did it.
And in the process, Eliza makes a human being out of Professor Henry Higgins––a human being with feelings for someone other than himself.
Hats off to Director John Packard and Musical Director Chris Betts who presented a wonderful production of this premier Broadway musical to the Lubbock community.
The participants view their contributions as a way to use their God-given talents to bless others.
At times I thought I'd die of fright,
Never was there a momentary lull …
You should have heard the oooh's and ah's
Everyone wondering who she was …
I'm so glad I did it.
