{"id":4740,"date":"2019-02-18T05:39:37","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T13:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=4740"},"modified":"2019-02-18T05:39:37","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T13:39:37","slug":"benanti-the-fairest-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2019\/02\/18\/benanti-the-fairest-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"Benanti &#8211; The Fairest Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since I was at&nbsp;<em>Lincoln<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Center<\/em>, I sauntered across the plaza and FINALLY saw the revival of&nbsp;<strong><em>My Fair Lady<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; I went primarily for the luminous&nbsp;<strong>Laura Benanti<\/strong>, who is fulfilling a lifelong dream by playing Eliza Doolittle.&nbsp; To say the role fit like a glove isn\u2019t quite right \u2013 it was actually more like second skin.&nbsp; Obviously she can sing beautifully.&nbsp; But, more than that \u2013 she acted the role to perfection.&nbsp; Her commitment is peerless and her ability is inestimable.&nbsp; I just wish her Eliza were a trifle less dour and had a bit more charm and spunk \u2013 especially in her early scenes.&nbsp; But my hunch is that\u2019s a remnant of the person Benanti replaces in the cast \u2013 or perhaps part of director&nbsp;<strong>Bartlett Sher<\/strong>\u2019s vision, which takes a serious look at gender roles and sexual dynamics.&nbsp; It makes the show more timely than ever.&nbsp; Truly, it\u2019s impossible to fault anything in this luxurious production.&nbsp; The sets, the orchestra, the costumes, the cast \u2013 everything is simply perfection.&nbsp; In fact, if NBC is seriously looking for a family-friendly musical to do live, this is it &#8211; cast and all.&nbsp;&nbsp;Having&nbsp;<strong>Harry Hadden-Paton&nbsp;<\/strong>opposite Benanti is a stroke of luck.&nbsp; Not only does he fit the traditional role of Higgins to a T, the duo\u2019s constantly evolving dynamics work on every level.&nbsp; And, what can one say about&nbsp;<strong>Rosemary Harris<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 it is simply an honor to be in her presence.&nbsp; Benanti has extended her run through July 7<sup>th<\/sup>, and it would be a crime to miss this piece of magic should you be in NYC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since I was at&nbsp;Lincoln&nbsp;Center, I sauntered across the plaza and FINALLY saw the revival of&nbsp;My Fair Lady.&nbsp; I went primarily for the luminous&nbsp;Laura Benanti, who is fulfilling a lifelong dream by playing Eliza Doolittle.&nbsp; To say the role fit like a glove isn\u2019t quite right \u2013 it was actually more like second skin.&nbsp; Obviously she<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4741,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions\/4741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}