My Fair Lady’s first Eliza tells Australia why she’s recreating the show 60 years on.

If there’s one thing to be gleaned from the first press conference ahead of Dame Julie Andrews’ much-anticipated 2016 staging of My Fair Lady, it’s that here is a star turn who has the power to make grown men, if not cry, then most definitely gush. A parade of ministers and magnates took to the stage ahead of the Broadway icon today to tell us what an honour, privilege and pleasure it is to have Dame Julie in Sydney, and as the 80-year-old singer, actor, writer and director duly appeared, it’s fair to say that few in the packed Opera House foyer would have disagreed. For Andrews has that rare quality, coming over as funny, honest, thoughtful and self-deprecating all at once. And there’s something undeniably sincere about her observations as well as her manner.

Of course, she’s actually here in Sydney to work. A gruelling audition process is underway to find the company for what will be the 60th anniversary production of the show. The original opened on Broadway in 1956 and went on to transform what many thought was possible in the traditional book musical. As Opera Australia Artistic Director Lynden Terracini explained, the synergy of that birthday coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the national opera company was too hard to resist – hence the wooing and winning of their star director. Not only that, after a degree of prevarication over the nature of the production, the organisers are now delightedly announcing that not only do they have the original Eliza at the helm, they are recreating the original production, sets, costumes and all.

Lyndon Terracini, John Frost, Dame Julie Andrews and Stuart Ayres

“I hope I am channelling Moss Hart while I’m here,” explained Andrews, paying tribute to a great man of the American theatre and her original director on the project. She credits Hart with helping her find the character of Eliza Dolittle in Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s adaptation of Shaw’s Pygmalion. Andrews was 20 when the show opened. “I was the right age for Eliza,” she points out, contrasting herself with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Shaw’s first Eliza in the play, who was knocking 50 when she created the role back in 1913! During out of town try-outs, and then the run of the show, Andrews learned a trick or two of her own here and there. “I played the role for three-and-a-half years, eight shows a week,” she says, “so I think I got to know it rather well!”

Discussing the enduring power of a musical like My Fair Lady, Dame Julie is clear. “These shows were written by people at the peak of their careers,” she explains, going on to praise the “melody, beauty, and the phenomenal text in both book and lyrics”. And it wasn’t only the audiences who recognised the special qualities of the work – the industry word back in 1955 was strong too. Andrews tells the story of auditioning for Richard Rodgers’ Pipe Dream as a “green” 19-year-old, and when he asked if she was up for anything else, she admitted she’d been talking to the My Fair Lady team. Rodgers instant reply was that if it was offered she should take it – “the most wonderfully generous piece of advice,” as Andrews puts it.

Of course, most in the media are keen to know if the old Eliza has found the new Eliza yet. At the end of day three of auditions, Andrews reckoned the question a little premature, but as she said several times, “I’ve been seeing a lot of wonderful talent here” and thought she’d likely identified an excellent company of actors to form the bedrock of the production. Her advice to any budding Elizas on tackling the cockney flower girl transformed into a ‘lady’ by egotistical elocution professor Henry Higgins was “Think about your lyrics, think the role through.” Describing George Bernard Shaw’s original as “a most musical play”, Andrews pointed out the need for Eliza to have a good strong singing voice, able to sustain eight shows a week, and capable of going from sweetly sung soprano to raging working-class cockney. That’s not as easy as one might think in this day and age when singers are more used to belting out rock musicals.

In a wide-ranging Q&A session, Andrews declared she wasn’t regretful that she could no longer sing the songs, and admitted that she’d have liked to have had a crack at Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. She described the pressure to put the show on as both exciting and daunting, and was clearly thrilled about the “huge” orchestra she will have at her disposal, which she confessed was “pretty rare these days”. “We haven’t got many previews,” she added, looking sideways at producer John Frost.

Asked why she was returning to the show after all these years, Dame Julie was thoughtful. “I feel a genuine gratitude for having been a part of it,” adding that now, for her, “It’s about giving back.”

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