How the Shaw Festival transformed its My Fair Lady’ into something totally different — with just one small change

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — It’s rare for Canadian theatre companies to replace cast members during the run of a show.
Unlike Broadway, where certain open-ended productions can last for years, requiring new performers to take over when others leave, shows on this side of the border rarely run for more than a few weeks. Even at our largest theatres, the company of actors that opens a production is usually the same group that closes it. 
But there’s a high-profile exception to that norm playing out at the Shaw Festival this year. The company’s mainstage musical, “My Fair Lady,” has an unusually long run, from May to December 2024. And earlier this fall, Canadian theatre star Tom Rooney, who earned critical acclaim for his leading performance as Professor Henry Higgins, stepped back from the show and was replaced by Allan Louis. 
Now, theatre critics don’t usually rereview shows when one actor leaves and another steps in. But I wanted to make an exception for this production. 
Rooney had put such a unique spin on the iconic role — made famous, of course, by the English actor Rex Harrison — that I was curious about how Louis would approach the character. Would he offer a similar reading? Or would he go in a totally different direction? And how can new casting dynamics shake up a long-running production like “My Fair Lady”? 
For the uninitiated, Lerner and Loewe’s 1956 musical is based on the play “Pygmalion,” by Bernard Shaw. Set in Edwardian London, the show centres on a flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, who transforms into an English aristocrat with the help of Henry, a phonetics professor with a misogynistic streak.
What made Rooney’s performance so revelatory was that he softened Henry’s edges. As I wrote in my rave review earlier this spring, Rooney’s Henry is “less of the ‘selfish brute’ that Eliza describes and more of a lonely misfit … At least how Rooney delivers them, the misogynistic put-downs that Henry later spews seem aimed not solely toward Eliza but also at himself. They come across as a defence mechanism, as if he’s trying to convince himself that she is unsuitable for him and he for her.” 
Rooney’s sympathetic portrayal injected a new-found complexity into the classic story. His Henry was not an aging bachelor by choice but by circumstance, and he came across as surprisingly tolerable, even likeable.
The rest of the Shaw Festival production, co-directed by Tim Carroll and Kimberley Rampersad, felt perfectly calibrated to serve Rooney’s interpretation. The final scene, when Eliza returns to Henry, was marvellously staged to suit Rooney’s self-deprecating delivery of the musical’s infamous last line. It suggested that his Henry had not only come around to accept Eliza, but also himself. 
Louis, by contrast, who stepped into the role on Oct. 17 after performing in the show’s ensemble and understudying Rooney, is offering a far different take on the character. It’s an interpretation that stands on its own.
Vocally, Louis is a muscular baritone. There’s nothing meek nor insecure about his Henry. His lines are delivered with such depth and powerful resonance that I sometimes wondered if the ground was going to crack open under his feet. 
And when Louis breaks into song, he actually sings. Rooney, on the other hand, spoke-sung most of Henry’s solos, as is traditionally done. (Harrison, who originated the role, was a notoriously bad vocalist.) What a welcome surprise to actually hear numbers like “I’m an Ordinary Man” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” delivered with a roaring voice.
It’s in these regards that Louis breaks with the classic interpretation of the role. But there are also ways in which his portrayal fits snugly into the traditional mould. 
Louis, a commanding figure unlike Rooney’s somewhat slighter frame, makes no attempt to turn Henry into a sympathetic character. In fact, he leans into the character’s inherent abrasiveness and blatant misogyny.   
This isn’t a Henry who’s insecure about himself, hiding behind his put-downs. Louis’s Henry means every word he says. Towering over Eliza, he sniggers and sneers, launching insults with an air of indifference. He wields his index finger like Zeus employs his thunderbolt — condescendingly pointing and wagging it at those who cross his path. At the matinee performance I attended, there were audible gasps from the audience. 
In the end, it’s refreshing to see that Carroll and Rampersad have entrusted Louis to find his own version of Henry Higgins. And it goes to show that even though both actors are performing in the same production — not a single bit of staging has been changed for Louis — there’s still space for new interpretations. 
What’s also fascinating to see is how Louis’s fresh take on the role impacts the performers around him, who adjust their performances to match his. Because Louis’s Henry has less of an arc than Rooney’s interpretation, it transfers more of the focus to Kristi Frank’s Eliza. 
Opposite Louis, her Eliza feels even more headstrong than before; her rebuke of Henry in the second act is especially forceful. Frank’s voice, however, still possesses the same beautiful warmth that it had when she opened the show more than half a year ago. 
Others aspects of Carroll and Rampersad’s production have only improved since my first viewing. The sound issues I nitpicked in my original review have been fixed; the choreography and scene transitions now feel sharper and tighter; and the rest of the ensemble seems to have settled in well for this musical’s long run. 
It all goes to show how a production evolves even after it opens. Each show is a unique experience, never exactly the same as the one that came before. And as new performers step into established roles, they have the ability to breathe new life into an entire production.