Word: pygmalions
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...first thing any Shavian will probably tell you about Pygmalion is not to think of it as the non-musical version of My Fair Lady. That's the alias by which it's most commonly recognized, which is not at all to its discredit: few more delightful musicals have ever been written. But what the romantic aura of the Broadway adaptation obscures, and what the new Lyric Stage production generally succeeds in conveying, is the darker, harder-edged quality that persists beneath all the sparkle...
...Pygmalion is on one level a lightly speculative exercise on social mobility and the potential of human education-the idea that even a flower girl can be transformed into a lady by learning to speak and dress like one. And on this level, the play is a joy to watch, grounding the fairy tale quality of the story with gloriously Shavian wit. But as a drama of human relations, it's much more frustrating and far less palatable than many of the playwright's other works (the fourth act, when done with enough punch, is one of the most brutally...
...rest of the cast, free of the tensions and ambivalence of the two principal characters, do an excellent job presenting the purely comic elements with which Pygmalion abounds. Michael Bradshaw is first-class as that eloquent spokesman for "the undeserving poor," Alfred Doolittle; Eve Johnson cuts a superbly commanding matriarchal figure as the noble Mrs. Higgins; while Alice Duffy strides with majestic aplomb as Mrs. Pearce, Higgins' unflappable housekeeper...
Despite the folly of comparing Pygmalion with its musical offspring, one can't help but recall, a little wistfully, the incomparable inflections of the great Rex Harrison and the riotously funny phonetics lessons (which Shaw either wrote in later or should have written). Nonetheless, the Lyric Stage production does succeed in capturing both the delicious comic shimmer and the essentially problematic nature of Shaw's best-known play...
Chandra is a kind of Pygmalion: he can turn whatever piece of stone or gold he touches into a lifelike creation. Born into a family that had been master artisans for four generations, he quickly established himself as one of Jaipur's finest sculptors, and his talents were sought by temple priests and princes. "If all I saw was your nose, it would be enough for me to sculpt a likeness of your entire body," says Chandra, 75, whose folded hands are like a box of old wooden tools. "It's all to do with proportions. That...