Y’s `My Fair Lady’ sounds and looks loverly

When I caught myself singing a gospel version of “On the Street Where You Live” in the car Friday morning, I realized how inspiring the opening night performance of the Bangor-Brewer YWCA’s “My Fair Lady” was Thursday night at Peakes Auditorium.

For me, it’s not so much George Bernard Shaw’s witty story of how Henry Higgins, a professor of language and expert on dialects, wagers with Colonel Pickering about transforming a foul-sounding flower girl into a lady in time for the Embassy Ball later that year. It’s the classic — and somewhat detestable — story of how a man sculpts a woman into a thing of beauty and propriety, how a woman teaches a man about something as basically human as love, and how they can both live together in the musical harmony of none other than Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

Back in 1956, when the show opened with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, it received 10 Tony nominations and won six awards, including best musical. The show’s original cast album was the best-selling record of all time (not merely the best-selling show record). So certain it was that this was a remarkable stage phenomenon, it was billed as the “musical of the century” even though there were 44 years left to actually wait and see.

And I have to admit, “My Fair Lady” is one of my favorite musicals, too.

But for me, the YWCA production, directed by Kenneth Stack, is memorable because it sounds beautiful and looks opulent.

It would be hard, for instance, to find a better collection of voices. The most loverly is Elena Marie DeSiervo, a trained opera singer, as Eliza. The richness and clarity of her voice make it easy to overlook that she sometimes has the manner of an MTV pop star. Those moments aside, this is some of DeSiervo’s best work as an actor — demure, demanding, transformed.

She’s also not the only dynamite voice in the cast. The chorus has some of the best local singers to be found — Leslie Adams, Amy Armstrong, Kimberly Horn, Tom Logan, Karen Gallant, Valerie Eaton, Brian Thompson, Chuck Somers, and Durell Buzzini. Their harmonies are exquisite and confident, and music director Robert Bahr is to blame. Both the vocalists and the instrumentalists he has gathered make this show a pleasure to the ear.

And the people who have made it look good, choreographer Kelly Holyoke, costumer Anne Geel, and light man Steve Carignan, have had more than just a little bit of luck in making this a success. The painted backdrops, which were rented from a company in Michigan, and the luscious set pieces are sure to make a fews eyes pop out in amazement.

Several of the performances are worth noting, too. Michael Weinstein as Pickering has good comic timing and never steps out of character. Karen Gallant as Higgins’ no-nonsense housekeeper is astute. John Thomas as Higgins is profoundly pensive. Joe Bennett as the suitor Freddy Eynesford-Hill has a sweet voice and a delightful set of facial responses when DeSiervo belts him with the song “Show Me.”

The outstanding theatrical moments, however, belong to two supporting actors: Steve Robbins and Cushing Samp. Robbins’ Alfred Doolittle is pure entertainment. He mixes the manner of Jackie Gleason with the slapstick of the Three Stooges and throws in a healthy pinch of good ol’ Steve Robbins clowning, and how sweet it is. Even when I couldn’t understand or hear a single word he was saying (partially because he’s recovering from bronchitis), I was bent in laughter.

Samp is onstage for less than a half an hour in this three-hour production, but she is filled with wit, grace and dignity as Higgins’ high-class mother.

I suspect that it will be a while before I stop humming “The Rain in Spain,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church On Time,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” That’s what the memory of a fun night of community theater, and particularly this production of “My Fair Lady,” does to people: it puts a song in their hearts.

“My Fair Lady,” a benefit for Bangor-Brewer YWCA’s Camp Molly Molasses and the Isaac Farrar Mansion, will be performed 8 p.m. Nov. 19 and 2 p.m. Nov. 20 at Bangor High School’s Peakes