A snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.

“My Fair Lady” is the best and most unlikely of musicals, during which I cannot decide if I am happier when the characters are talking or when they are singing. The songs are literate and beloved; some romantic, some comic, some nonsense, some surprisingly philosophical, every single one wonderful. The dialogue by Alan Jay Lerner wisely retains a great deal of “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw, himself inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

This fusion functions at such an elevation of sophistication and wit that when poor smitten Freddy sings “On the Street Where You Live,” a song that would distinguish any other musical, this one drops Freddy entirely rather than risk another such simplistic outburst. His sincerity seems childlike compared with the emotional fencing match between the guarded Higgins and the wary Eliza. It is characteristic that in a musical that has love as its buried theme, no one ever kisses, or seems about to. -ROGER EBERT

Doors Open 30 Minutes Before Showtime.