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T he Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival concludes their impressive 15th season with the crowd-pleasing My Fair Lady. While a cynical response comes easily — are musicals really necessary to balance a Shakespeare festival's budget? — Dennis Razze's production is brisk, gorgeous and beautifully sung, and there's nothing wrong with all that.

Alan Jay Lerner's book borrows its best lines from its source, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, and his lyrics match Shaw's acerbic wit, balancing the wry insights of "A Hymn to Him" and "Why Can't the English?" with romantic classics "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "On the Street Where You Live," plus comic show-stoppers "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me to the Church on Time," all composed by Frederick Loewe.

Cristin M. Boyle plays Eliza Doolittle, the poor "squashed cabbage leaf" selling flowers in Covent Garden whom phonetics expert Professor Henry Higgins (Alan Coates) wagers he can "pass off as a duchess — or a shopkeeper or lady's maid, which require better English." With his genial colleague Pickering (Wayne S. Turney) and the fretful housekeeper Mrs. Pearce (Sharon Grace Powers), Higgins strives to bridge "the deepest gulf that separates class from class, soul from soul."

Shaw's themes are relevant today (witness the "Ebonics" issue a few years ago, chronic illiteracy and the English-as-national-language debate), and part of My Fair Lady's success is that Shaw's ideas emerge clearly in musical comedy form. Blunting Eliza's transformation somewhat is that Boyle is not the "deliciously low" creature required — from the first, we see her poise and beauty — and Coates forces Higgins' hyperactive glee, too often settling for dour ponderousness. Still, Shaw's key themes — like the fact that a person is defined "not by how she acts, but how she is treated" — come alive.

The show's glorious songs emerge flawlessly, with Michael Corr's charm as Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle, Spencer Plachy's moony gusto as Eliza's upper-crust suitor Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and rousing performances from the spirited ensemble. Vincent Brosseau's choreography and Razze's staging are brisk and clever, using Mark Evancho's elegant set well, plus incorporating scene changes to keep this old-fashioned loooooong show (over three hours) from sagging. Lisa L. Zinni's costumes grandly illustrate the period, especially the Ascot swells (in stunning black and white) and Eliza's sparkling coming-out gown.

PSF plans no musical next year in a season including Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew and The Winter's Tale as well as Peter Shaffer's enormous Amadeus, brave choices considering that My Fair Lady will probably outsell them all.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)

MY FAIR LADY

Through Aug.6, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, DeSales University, Center Valley, 610-282-9455 or www.pashakespeare.org