The therapist framing device, which was in Lerner’s first draft but abandoned before Boston, turned up again in the librettist’s later rewrites. It was Mr. Haagensen’s decision to make Dr. Ray a woman, allowing her to serve as something of a surrogate for Lolita, who, as in the novel, exists more in Humbert’s imagination than as her own person.
Even with Mr. Haagensen’s edits, however, “Lolita, My Love” still centers Humbert over his victim. As Ms. Maltby acknowledged, “If you were to do an adaptation of ‘Lolita’ today, it wouldn’t look like this.”
James Morgan, the York’s producing artistic director, believes the show is worth the risk. He said that he sent the new script, along with the 1971 Boston versions, to several female friends to get their perspective. All of them told him that “Lolita, My Love” was worth putting on, he said.
“People have been afraid of it,” Mr. Morgan said. “I guess it’s possible that we could be picketed by hundreds of people, but I think anyone who sees it will realize that it’s not being done for the wrong reasons.”
Other circumstances are likely to mitigate possible controversy. For one, this is a reading in a 160-seat theater, not a full production. For another, Caitlin Cohn, who is playing Lolita, is not an actual teenage girl but an actor in her early 20s. (In 1971, Annette Ferra played the role in Philadelphia, but was let go because she was considered too old for the part at 15. The Boston run starred 13-year-old Denise Nickerson, who went on to play Violet Beauregarde in the “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” film that same year.)
But for the cast and creative team, the appeal of this production — apart from celebrating a largely forgotten Lerner musical — is in the way it handles the aftermath of trauma, holding the Humberts of the world to task and allowing the title character to come into her own.
“You really do end up hearing her own voice,” Ms. Cohn said. “Audiences should hopefully feel very empowered by that — that even though this man tore apart her life, he didn’t tear apart everything that she is and will be.”
