Over the past 30 years, audiences have grown accustomed to Marcus Waterman’s face, watching him play characters of astonishing range and variety, from musical theater patriarchs like Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” to his award-winning turn as a depressed suburban father in Curious Theatre’s apocalyptic “End Days.”
Once in a great while, you’re lucky enough to see a seasoned actor like Waterman not only perform at the top of his game, but arrive on even higher ground.
Waterman is reuniting with Gina Schuh-Turner as Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in a delightful “My Fair Lady” 50 miles to the north and 12 years after their four-star turn together at the Country Dinner Playhouse.
But this isn’t the same Waterman who was lauded then for how he let a tiny seed of empathy bloom out of Higgins’ Gibraltar-like arrogance into something akin to real feeling for his loverly lab rat.
He’s better. Waterman was portraying Henry Higgins then. He’s embodying him now, revealing a depth of character rarely seen in the musical theater. His current Higgins is older, as is the actor, and there’s a real, oblivious cruelty to him doing battle with an equally evident little-boy loneliness that adds layers of complexity to his performance.
And Schuh-Turner? Well, this is a signature role, one that highlights her natural comic abilities, her loveliness of physical features and winsome heart. And she can sing as pretty as the princess he’s made her out to be.
“My Fair Lady,” adapted from “Pygmalion” by Lerner and Loewe in 1956, is an anomaly among musicals: It’s not a love story. It’s a psychological battle of wills served up with all the delightful Disney-like trappings that have made it a family favorite for decades.
But just as surely as Higgins is making a lady out of the cockney flower girl, she is inadvertently making a human being out of him. Yet love between them is out of the question.
You know the story: The mad word doctor bets his old colleague Colonel Pickering he can train an uncouth street urchin to speak properly and pass her off as a princess. And as he does so, of course, the rain falls in the famous Spanish plain, young suitor Freddy holds vigil on the street where Eliza lives, and the girl could have danced all night.
There’s also much comedy to play, but director Steven Cogswell doesn’t trade on it. For what better way to wryly skewer the English upper class than to present a protagonist who breaks his protege as exactingly as one might a misbehaving dog.
When Higgins calls Eliza an impudent hussy, a gutter snipe, a barbarous wretch, a presumptuous insect, these are not blithe, fangless epithets. They’re laced with the same underlying racism shown by generations of Americans who casually used the “n word” and then couldn’t fathom how they had caused the slightest offense.
And yet there’s also a real, searching quality to Higgins that humanizes him without betraying him. When Higgins says, “You’ve wounded me to the heart,” we should laugh. But because Waterman’s Higgins is so knowable, we can’t.
There’s much more to praise about Cogswell’s staging: Joey Wishnia’s Pickering makes for one of the most assured comic turns of his distinguished career. Also: Kathy Leonard’s battleaxe Mrs. Higgins; Robert Gadpaille’s Alfred P. Doolittle (the con man who’s been conned to the altar); and Mark J. Lively, who’s so winning as the lovestruck Freddy, you kind of want to change the ending in his favor.
Brian Mallgrave, the scenic designer at the Arvada Center, offers a wonderfully flowing set. The sound is crystal clear, the choral singing from a cast of 22 is pure, and the four live musicians seem to be doing the work of 10.
The dining is first-rate, with appetizers like poached shrimp cocktail and baked brie; dinner options that include prime rib and shrimp scampi. Just don’t sit anywhere near the kitchen, where the cleaning noise does battle with the action on the stage throughout the second act.
Sadly, “My Fair Lady” is likely your last chance to see union actors Waterman and Schuh-Turner perform at Candlelight, which is shedding its union status after this show as a cost-cutting move.
Schuh-Turner has been the stage “face” of Candlelight since it opened two years ago — and that’s a mighty fair lady who will be exiting the stage May 30.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“My Fair Lady” **** (out of four stars)
Family musical. Presented by Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, 4747 Marketplace Drive, Johnstown. Directed by Steven Cogswell. Through May 30. 3 hours. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays (dinner service 90 minutes before). $36-$59 (plus meal upgrades, drinks and dessert); $25 under 18; $29.50 show only. 970-744-3747 or 1-877-240-4242,
