Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Probably best known today as the Audrey Hepburn musical My Fair Lady, Pygmalion is a twist on the archetypal rags-to-riches story. Eliza Doolittle, an impoverished flower seller, meets linguist Professor Higgins and requests that he teach her to “talk more genteel” so she can upgrade to a flower lady in a shop. Higgins takes her on, in part due to a bet with his friend and fellow linguist Pickering, and attempts to mould Eliza into a woman with the dulcet tones and mannerisms of a proper lady.
The title is a classical reference to the sculptor Pygmalion, who fell in love with the statue he created. The subtitle of the book is “A Romance in Five Acts“. Put these together with the now-classic romcom set up – let’s face it, it’s practically the same plot as Pretty Woman but with fewer hookers and a bit more talking – and you’d think you were dealing with a fluffy happy story about people falling in love. You’d be wrong, but the misunderstanding is forgivable. The question of “what is to be done with Liza” comes up over and over again in the first half of the play, dismissed by the major players who all have their own reasons for continuing the experiment. Eliza wants to be able to promote herself in the world, her father doesn’t want to take responsibility for her keep, and Higgins and Pickering are excited by the prospect of putting their principles into practice.
Previously to this, the only Shaw I’d come across was Mrs Warren’s Profession in Plays Unpleasant, written before he started sugarcoating his more controversial ideas. Higgins’ misogyny and unwillingness to accept Liza as anything other than a “squashed cabbage leaf” are pretty unpleasant but the comedy value aspects, such as Eliza’s posh accent/gutter vocabulary combo, mask the worst excesses and make the nastier elements a little less unpalatable. And even when she finally comes to the realisation that “I sold flowers, I didn’t sell myself. Now you’ve made a lady of me, I’m not fit to sell anything else”, it’s not as shocking as the moment in MWP when her daughter discovers where their money was earnt. Both moments essentially address the same issue – society’s reaction to a woman selling her own body – but in Pygmalion it is an aspect of a frothy confection whereas MWP deals with the subject directly.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the play. Despite the fact that I’ve never seen the famous film version all the way through, I still had Audrey Hepburn’s voice in my head as I read it – particularly the ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow exclamations she makes with an annoying frequency (and which are no less irritating in print than they were in the film). It’s tough to get a proper handle on something that should be viewed on a stage sometimes, but this is a pretty good example of a play that can be read for pleasure. It provides surface enjoyment easily but rewards closer inspection as well:
