Pygmalion (play)
Shaw used Pygmalion from Roman mythology as the basis for his play. It is the story of Professor Henry Higgins, a snobbish linguist who wagers that he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into the toast of London society merely by teaching her how to speak with an upper-class accent. In the process, he becomes fond of her and attempts to direct her future, but she rejects his domineering ways and marries a young aristocrat.
The original stage play shocked audiences by Eliza's use of a swear word. Humour is drawn from her ability to speak well, but without an understanding of the conversation acceptable to polite society. For example, when asked whether she is walking home, she replies, "Not bloody likely!" The actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, for whom Shaw wrote the role, was thought to risk her career by uttering the line.
In 1938, a non-musical film version of the stage play was released,[1] starring Leslie Howard as Higgins, Wendy Hiller as Eliza, Wilfrid Lawson as her father Alfred Doolittle, Scott Sunderland as Colonel George Pickering, and David Tree as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. It was adapted to film by Shaw, W.P. Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple and Anatole de Grunwald from the Shaw play, and directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The play was the basis for the musical play and film My Fair Lady.[1]
The play, the stage musical, and the film musical have different endings. At the end of the play, Eliza leaves Higgins to marry the aristocrat. Shaw, annoyed by the tendency of audiences, actors, and even directors to seek "romantic" re-interpretations of his ending, later wrote an essay for inclusion with subsequent editions in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza getting together. In the stage musical, this is left unresolved, and the final scene is of a lonely Higgins. In the film version of the musical, the final scene closes with both of them apparently about to reconcile.
Contemporary versions of the Pygmalion motif can be found in Willy Russell's play Educating Rita (1980) and "Pretty Woman". A more recent version of the Pygmalion motif can be found indirectly in many teen movies, such as Can't Buy Me Love in the 80s (with its 2000s counterpart remake) and more directly in the movie She's All That.
External links
| The Plays of George Bernard Shaw | |
|---|---|
| Plays Unpleasant: The Philanderer, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Widowers' Houses | |
| Plays Pleasant: Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Destiny, You Never Can Tell | |
| Three Plays for Puritans: Caesar and Cleopatra, Captain Brassbound's Conversion, The Devil's Disciple | |
| Back to Methuselah: ', ', ', ', | |
| Other Plays: Androcles and the Lion, The Apple Cart, The Doctor's Dilemma, Fanny's First Play, Geneva, Heartbreak House, John Bull's Other Island, Major Barbara, Man and Superman, Misalliance, Pygmalion, Saint Joan | |
