Pygmalion

Illustration depicting Mrs Campbell as Eliza

Pygmalion (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw loosely inspired by the Greek myth of the same name. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Eliza grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill – a young, poor, gentleman.

Shaw wrote the lead role of Eliza Doolittle for Mrs Patrick Campbell (though at 49 she was considered by some to be too old for the role). Owing to delays in mounting a London production and Mrs. Campbell's injury in a car accident, the first English presentation did not take place until some time after Pygmalion premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913, in a German translation by Shaw. The first production in English finally opened at His Majesty's Theatre, London on April 11, 1914 and starred Mrs Campbell as Eliza and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Henry Higgins; it was directed by Shaw himself.

The Pygmalion myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story in 1871, called Pygmalion and Galatea. Shaw also would have been familiar with the burlesque version, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed.

The word Pygmalion finds its origins in Greece. The story of a slave (Artuss Pygmalius) turned prince after his true blood lines were discovered.

Plot

First American (serialized) publication, Everybody's Magazine, November 1914

Shaw was conscious of the difficulties involved in staging a complete representation of the play. Acknowledging in a "Note for technicians" that such a thing would only be possible "on the cinema screen or on stages furnished with exceptionally elaborate machinery", he marked some scenes as candidates for omission if necessary. Of these, a short scene at the end of Act One in which Eliza goes home, and a scene in Act Two in which Eliza is unwilling to undress for her bath, are not described here. The others are the scene at the Embassy Ball in Act Three and the scene with Eliza and Freddy in Act Four. Neither the Gutenberg edition referenced throughout this page nor the Wikisource text linked below contain these sequences.

Act One

'Covent Garden' - 11.15p.m. A group of people are sheltering from the rain. Amongst them are the Eynsford-Hills, superficial social climbers eking out a living in "genteel poverty", consisting initially of Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her daughter Clara. Clara's brother Freddy enters having earlier been dispatched to secure them a cab (which they can ill afford), but being rather timid and faint-hearted he has failed to do so. His sister bullies him, and enjoys seeing him look ridiculous. As he goes off once again to find a cab, he bumps into a flower girl, Eliza. Her flowers drop into the mud of Covent Garden, the flowers she needs to survive in her poverty-stricken world. Shortly they are joined by a gentleman, Colonel Pickering. While Eliza tries to sell flowers to the Colonel, a bystander informs her that a man is writing down everything she says. The man is Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. Eliza worries that Higgins is a police officer and will not calm down until Higgins introduces himself. It soon becomes apparent that he and Colonel Pickering have a shared interest in phonetics; indeed, Pickering has come from India to meet Higgins and Higgins was planning to go to India to meet Pickering. Higgins tells Pickering that he could pass off the flower girl as duchess merely by teaching her to speak properly. These words of bravado spark an interest in Eliza, who would love to make changes in her life and become more mannerly, even though, to her, it only means working in a flower shop. At the end of the act, Freddy returns after finding a taxi, only to find that his mother and sister have gone and left him with the cab. The streetwise Eliza takes the cab from him, using the money that Higgins tossed to her out of pity, leaving him on his own.

Act Two

Higgins' home - Next Day. As Higgins demonstrates his phonetics to Pickering, the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, tells him that a young girl wants to see him. Eliza has shown up, and she tells Higgins that she will pay for lessons. He shows no interest in her, but she reminds him of his boast the previous day, so she can talk like a lady in a flower shop. Higgins claimed that he could pass her for a duchess. Pickering makes a bet with him on his claim, and says that he will pay for her lessons if Higgins succeeds. She is sent off to have a bath. Mrs. Pearce tells Higgins that he must behave himself in the young girl's presence. He must stop swearing, and improve his table manners. He is at a loss to understand why she should find fault with him. Then Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father, appears with the sole purpose of getting money out of Higgins. He has no interest in his daughter in a paternal way. He sees himself as member of the undeserving poor, and means to go on being undeserving. He has an eccentric view of life, brought about by a lack of education and an intelligent brain. He is also aggressive, and when Eliza, on her return, sticks her tongue out at him, he goes to hit her, but is prevented by Pickering. The scene ends with Higgins telling Pickering that they really have got a difficult job on their hands.

Act Three

Mrs Higgins' drawing room. Higgins bursts in and tells his mother he has picked up a "common flower girl" whom he has been teaching. Mrs Higgins is not very impressed with her son's attempts to win her approval because it is her 'at home' day and she is entertaining visitors. The visitors are the Eynsford-Hills. Higgins is rude to them on their arrival. Eliza enters and soon falls into talking about the weather and her family. Whilst she is now able to speak in beautifully modulated tones, the substance of what she says remains unchanged from the gutter. She confides her suspicions that her father killed her aunt, to whom gin was "mother's milk", and that her father himself was always more cheerful after a good amount of gin. The Eynsford-Hills are curiously unperturbed by this, which Higgins passes off as "the new small talk" — and Freddy is enraptured. When she is leaving, he asks her if she is going to walk across the park, to which she replies, "Walk? Not bloody likely!" (This is the most famous line from the play, and, for many years after the play's debut, use of the word 'bloody' was known as a pygmalion; Mrs. Campbell was considered to have risked her career by speaking the line on stage.^{[citation needed]}) After she and the Eynsford-Hills leave, Henry asks for his mother's opinion. She says the girl is not presentable and is very concerned about what will happen to her, but neither Higgins nor Pickering understand her criticism, and leave feeling confident and excited about how Eliza will get on. This leaves Mrs Higgins feeling exasperated, and exclaiming, "Men! Men!! Men!!!"

However, the six months are not yet up, and just in time for the Embassy Ball Eliza learns to behave properly as well as to speak properly. The challenge she faces is increased, however, by the presence at the Ball of Nepommuck, a former pupil of Higgins' who speaks 32 languages and is acting as an interpreter for a "Greek diplomatist" who was in fact born the son of a Clerkenwell watchmaker and "speaks English so villainously that he dare not utter a word of it lest he betray his origin." Nepommuck charges him handsomely for helping keep up the pretence. Pickering worries that Nepommuck will see through Eliza's disguise; nonetheless, Eliza is presented to the Ball's hosts, who, impressed by this vision of whom they know nothing, despatch Nepommuck to find out about her. Meanwhile Higgins, the interesting work done, rapidly loses interest in proceedings as he sees that no-one will see through Eliza. Indeed, Nepommuck returns to his hosts to report that he has detected that Eliza is not English, as she speaks it too perfectly ("only those who have been taught to speak it speak it well"), and that she is, in fact, Hungarian, and of Royal blood. When asked, Higgins responds with the truth - and no-one believes him.

Act Four

Higgins' home - The time is midnight, and Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza have returned from the ball. A tired Eliza sits unnoticed, brooding and silent, while Pickering congratulates Higgins on winning the bet. Higgins scoffs and declares the evening a "silly tomfoolery", thanking God it's over and saying that he had been sick of the whole thing for the last two months. Still barely acknowledging Eliza beyond asking her to leave a note for Mrs. Pearce regarding coffee, the two retire to bed. Higgins asks where his slippers are, and on returning to the room Eliza throws them at him. Higgins is taken aback, and is at first completely unable to understand Eliza's preoccupation, which aside from being ignored after her triumph is the question of what she is to do now. When Higgins does understand he makes light of it, saying she could get married, but Eliza interprets this as selling herself like a prostitute. "We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road." Finally she returns her jewellery to Higgins, including the ring he had given her, which he throws into the fireplace with a violence that scares Eliza. Furious with himself for losing his temper, he damns Mrs. Pearce, the coffee and then Eliza, and finally himself, for "lavishing" his knowledge and his "regard and intimacy" on a "heartless guttersnipe", and retires in great dudgeon.

Eliza retrieves the ring but throws it down on a table, and goes to pack. She slips out into the night, only to encounter Freddy, who has taken to wandering up and down Wimpole Street by night, just to be close to Eliza. He declares his love for her and they kiss, only to be interrupted by a passing constable. They move on, only to be interrupted again; they decide to drive round in a taxi all night and call on Mrs. Higgins in the morning, reasoning that she will know what Eliza ought to do.

Act Five

Mrs. Higgins' drawing room, the next morning. Higgins and Pickering, perturbed by the discovery that Eliza has walked out on them, call on Mrs. Higgins to phone the police. Higgins is particularly distracted, since Eliza had assumed the responsibility of maintaining his diary and keeping track of his possessions, which causes Mrs. Higgins to decry their calling the police as though Eliza were "a lost umbrella". Doolittle is announced; he emerges dressed in splendid wedding attire and is furious with Higgins, who after their previous encounter had been so taken with Doolittle's unorthodox ethics that he had recommended him as the "most original moralist in England" to a rich American founding Moral Reform Societies; the American had subsequently left Doolittle a pension worth three thousand pounds a year, as a consequence of which Doolittle feels intimidated into joining the middle class and marrying his missus. Mrs. Higgins observes that this at least settles the problem of who shall provide for Eliza, to which Higgins objects — after all, he paid Doolittle five pounds for her. Mrs. Higgins informs her son that Eliza is upstairs, and explains the circumstances of her arrival, alluding to how marginalised and overlooked Eliza felt the previous night. Higgins is unable to appreciate this, and sulks when told that he must behave if Eliza is to join them. Doolittle is asked to wait outside.

Eliza enters, at ease and self-possessed. Higgins blusters but Eliza isn't shaken and speaks exclusively to Pickering. Throwing Higgins' previous insults back at him ("Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf"), Eliza remarks that it was only by Pickering's example that she learned to be a lady, which renders Higgins speechless. Eliza goes on to say that she has completely left behind the flower girl she was, and that she couldn't utter any of her old sounds if she tried — at which point Doolittle emerges from the balcony, causing Eliza to relapse totally into her gutter speech. Higgins is jubilant, jumping up and crowing over her. Doolittle explains his predicament and asks if Eliza will come to his wedding. Pickering and Mrs. Higgins also agree to go, and leave with Doolittle with Eliza to follow.

The scene ends with another confrontation between Higgins and Eliza. Higgins asks if Eliza is satisfied with the revenge she has wrought thus far and if she will now come back, but she refuses. Higgins defends himself from Eliza's earlier accusation by arguing that he treats everyone the same, so she shouldn't feel singled out. Eliza replies that she just wants a little kindness, and that since he will never stoop to show her this, she will not come back, but will marry Freddy. Higgins scolds her for such low ambitions: he has made her "a consort for a king." When she threatens to teach phonetics and offer herself as an assistant to Nepommuck, Higgins again loses his temper and promises to wring her neck if she does so. Eliza realises that this last threat strikes Higgins at the very core and that it gives her power over him; Higgins, for his part, is delighted to see a spark of fight in Eliza rather than her erstwhile fretting and worrying. Mrs. Higgins returns and she and Eliza depart for the wedding. As they leave Higgins incorrigibly gives Eliza a number of errands to run, as though their recent conversation had not taken place. Eliza disdainfully explains why they are unnecessary, and wonders what Higgins is going do without her. Higgins laughs to himself at the idea of Eliza marrying Freddy as the play ends.

Ending

Shaw, annoyed by the tendency of audiences, actors, and even directors to seek 'romantic' re-interpretations of his ending, later wrote an essay^[1] for inclusion with subsequent editions, in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza getting married.

Some subsequent adaptations have changed this ending. Despite Shaw's insistence that the original ending remain intact, producer Gabriel Pascal provided a more ambiguous end to the 1938 film: instead of marrying Freddy, Eliza apparently reconciles with Higgins in the final scene, implying that they probably will get married. Shaw amended the ending subsequent to the 1938 film and it is this later version that is described above: in the original ending, Eliza merely retorts "Buy them yourself" in response to Higgins' list of errands. Higgins is unperturbed, and the play ends with him left alone in Mrs. Higgins' drawing room, serenely confident that Eliza will, in fact, do as he asks.

The musical version My Fair Lady and its 1964 film have similar endings to the 1938 film.

Inspiration

In the preface to the play, Shaw claims that Higgins is based on Henry Sweet. He writes at length about Henry Sweet and notes that Higgins is not a portrait, but has several Sweet touches, and says of Sweet that "with Higgins's physique and temperament [he] might have set the Thames on fire." This view is generally accepted by literary scholars. Although Shaw did know Daniel Jones, the leading phonetician of the time, and some of the material in the play is based on the work of Jones, the character is not based on him in any way.^[2]

Adaptations

The play led to a series of adaptations:

• Hoi Polloi (1935), a film adaptation by The Three Stooges
• Pygmalion (1938), a film adaptation by Shaw starring Leslie Howard as "Higgins" and Wendy Hiller as "Eliza".
• My Fair Lady (1956), the Broadway musical by Lerner and Loewe (based on the 1938 film), starring Rex Harrison as "Higgins" and Julie Andrews as "Eliza".
• A 1963 television production of Pygmalion, starring Julie Harris as "Eliza" and James Donald as "Higgins", telecast on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
• My Fair Lady (1964), a film version of the musical starring Audrey Hepburn as "Eliza" and Rex Harrison as "Higgins".
• The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) A more modern adaptation by the pornographic film industry.
• She's All That (1999), a modern, teenage take on Pygmalion.
• Pygmalion (2007) , a broadway revival of Pygmalion starring Jefferson Mays and Claire Danes.
• Ti Fulrani (The Queen of Flowers), an adaptation by Pu La Deshpande in Marathi
• Santu Rangeeli, an adaptation by Pravin Joshi in Gujarati
• Pygmalion (2007), an adaptation by Aka Morchiladze and Levan Tsuladze in Georgian at the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi
• My Unfair Lady (2007), a Czech-language parody by S&M fetish filmmakers Lupus Pictures.
• Man Pasand is a 1980 Hindi movie directed by Basu Chatterjee, based on the play.
• Willy Russell's 1980 stage comedy Educating Rita, and the subsequent film adaptation, are similar in plot to Pygmalion.^[3]
• The First Night of Pygmalion a play depicting the backstage tensions during the first British production.

Differing versions

Different printed versions of the play omit or add certain lines, much like Shakespeare's First Folio and First Quarto editions of his plays. The Project Gutenberg version published online, for instance, omits Higgins famous declaration to Eliza, "Yes, you squashed cabbage-leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!" - a line so famous that it is now retained in nearly all productions of the play, including the 1938 film version of Pygmalion as well as in the stage and film versions of My Fair Lady.^[4]

Inexplicably, the Embassy Ball scene was not included in the original play, but was added by Shaw for the 1938 film version. It has been used ever since in productions of the play, as well as in the musical adaptation, My Fair Lady. Though Nepommuck was spoken about in the play, he was not seen until the 1938 film, where his name was changed to Arstid Karpathy. In My Fair Lady he became Zoltan Karpathy.

Television episodes

• The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 3rd season episode "The Galatea Affair" from 1966 is a spoof of My Fair Lady. A crude barroom entertainer (Joan Collins) is taught to behave like a lady. Noel Harrison, son of Rex Harrison, star of the My Fair Lady film, is the guest star.
• In the The Beverly Hillbillies episode "Pygmalion and Elly" Sonny resumes his high-class courtship of Elly May, by playing Julius Caesar and Pygmalion.
• In the Magnum P.I. episode "Professor Jonathan Higgins" of season 5 Jonathan Higgins tries to turn his punk rocker cousin into a high society socialite. Higgins even references Pygmalion in the episode.
• Family Guy episode, One If By Clam, Two If By Sea involves a subplot with Stewie trying to refine Eliza Pinchley, his new Cockney-accented neighbor, into a proper young lady. He makes a bet with Brian that he can improve Eliza's vocabulary and get her to speak without her accent before her birthday party.
• The plot of the Star Trek: Voyager episode Someone To Watch Over Me is loosely based on Pygmalion.
• Pygmalion is the inspiration for The Simpsons episode entitled Pygmoelian in which infamously ugly character Moe, of Moe's Tavern fame, has a facelift. It was also parodied to a much heavier extent in the episode My Fair Laddy, where the character being changed is uncouth Scotsman Groundskeeper Willie.
• The high school musical performed in the movie Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen was a rock musical version of Pygmalion entitled "Eliza Rocks" and starred Lindsay Lohan.

Notable productions

• 1945: Raymond Massey and Gertrude Lawrence at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre
• 1984: Peter O'Toole and Jackie Smith-Wood at the Shaftesbury Theatre
• 1997: Roy Marsden, Carli Norris (who replaced Emily Lloyd early in rehearsals) and Michael Elphick, directed by Ray Cooney at the Albery Theatre^[5]

Influence

Pygmalion has become Shaw's most popular play. He won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1939 for the film. Today, the play is best known to audiences through the musical version, My Fair Lady.^[6]

Joseph Weizenbaum named his artificial intelligence computer program ELIZA after the character Eliza Doolittle.^[7]

References

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Pygmalion

• Pygmalion stories & art: "successive retellings of the Pygmalion story after Ovid's Metamorphoses"
• Pygmalion at Project Gutenberg
• Pygmalion study guide, themes, quotes, & teacher resources

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