"If you can't appreciate what you've got, you'd better get what you can
appreciate."
― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion.
"Pygmalion will be a revelation to anyone familiar with My Fair
Lady. The issues of class and gender that fascinated Shaw still strike
a chord with modern audiences" -- J. D. Atkinson, British Theatre
Guide.
"a love story with brusque diffidence and a wealth of humor." - New
York Times (1914)
This timeless play is certain to delight contemporary readers.
Pygmalion was written by the renown British playwright George
Bernard Shaw. The title comes from the Greek mythological figure
Pygmalion. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a man who fell in
love with one of his sculptures which then came to life. The influence
of this myth is clear throughout the play.
The play follows the young flower girl Eliza; opening as the social
climber Freddy Eynsford-Hill bumps into Eliza in his haste to get a
taxi--leading to her dropping her entire day's flowers. Eliza, and her
strong accent, are observed by Henry Higgins a professor of phonetics
and his fellow philologist Colonel Pickering. Higgins confidently states
to Pickering that he could pass Eliza off as a duchess through giving
her elocution lessons. In five hilarious and witty acts the
relationships between these four characters unfolds.
First presented on stage to the public in 1913, the play has now been
staged across the world. One of Shaw's most famous plays, it has led to
a highly commended film adaptation and was the influence behind the
musical 'My Fair Lady.'
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1856. This Irish
playwright, critic, and political activist is probably best known for
his influence on Western theatre through works such as Pygmalion. Shaw
became known as one of the leading dramatists of his generation and was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 "for his work which is
marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being
infused with a singular poetic beauty." The word "Shavian" has entered
into the English language as a way of expressing Shaw's ideas and his
methods of communication. He is particularly known for his use of
realism and the way he interweaves his political, social and religious
ideas throughout his works.
