Claire Danes and Jefferson Mays in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.
By George Bernard Shaw
American Airlines Theatre
Claire Danes, in her recent movie roles, has begun to grate on me. In films like Shopgirl and Evening, she's developing the kind of mannered, self-conscious, overly fussy repertoire of facial tics that are early signs of Meryl Streep disease. But for her Broadway stage debut — in the Roundabout Theatre's production of George Bernard Shaws 1912 comedy Pygmalion — the proscenium proves a boon. As Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower girl who becomes a phonetics professor's demonstration project of the arbitrariness of class distinctions, she is spirited, charming, emotionally invested — and we never get close enough to see how hard she's trying. Her more seasoned co-star, Jefferson Mays (a Tony award winner three years ago as a cross-dressing German in I Am My Own Wife), is a quirky but very proficient Henry Higgins — a brittle, bantamweight counterpoint to more suavely sexy gents who have tackled the role, such as Leslie Howard in the 1938 film and Rex Harrison in the musical version, My Fair Lady. Director David Grindley, who did such a beautiful job with last season's World War I drama Journey's End, has put together a confident, if somewhat static production that doesn't force the laughs or apologize for all of Shaw's stimulating talk, talk, talk.