Pygmalion

Written by George Bernard Shaw

Narrated by Roslyn Alexander and Full Cast

One of Shaw’s most enduring works, Pygmalion is an insightful comedy of class relations and perceptions, as played out between a Cockney flower girl and the irascible speech professor who has taken her on as a pet project. Described by critics as “a play of great vitality and charm,” Pygmalion inspired the award-winning stage and film productions of Lerner and Loewe’s musical, My Fair Lady.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Roslyn Alexander, Shannon Cochran, Denise du Maurier, Rebecca MacLean, David New, Kenneth J. Northcott, Nicholas Pennell, Nicholas Rudall, Ben Whitehouse and Laura Whyte.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
• Release date: Dec 6, 2000
• ISBN: 9781580815048

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born into a lower-class family in Dublin, Ireland. During his childhood, he developed a love for the arts, especially music and literature. As a young man, he moved to London and found occasional work as a ghostwriter and pianist. Yet, his early literary career was littered with constant rejection. It wasn’t until 1885 that he’d find steady work as a journalist. He continued writing plays and had his first commercial success with Arms and the Man in 1894. This opened the door for other notable works like The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Reviews for Pygmalion

[david.alfred.sarkies · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pygmalion, in my opinion, is Shaw's piece de resistance (if that is how you spell it). It is a masterpiece. While I can simply leave it at that I am compelled to say a lot more about this play, but first, the plot.Two English gentlemen (and when I read this book I wondered if it was implied that they were homosexual) bet as to whether they can take a street urchin and turn her into a lady by teaching her how to speak proper English. They do and the experiment is successful, and the bet is won. However the problem is that the woman, Eliza, is left in a difficult position as despite the fact that she is now educated, she is still a woman and has all the rights of a woman - which is none. So, while Henry Higgins has proven that he can turn a street urchin into a lady, she is still a woman and is left in the situation that she cannot do anything with the education that she now has.This play is an attack upon education and upon the status of women in early 20th Century England. They simply had no rights and while they could learn and they could appear to move among the gentry, the fact that they were women relegated them to a second class status. It is said that the system of education was one of the areas that Shaw attacked in his plays, and in this play we see how despite Liza having an education, she knows that she can do nothing with it, and is not recognised as having an education.This play has spawned a lot of duplicates, one of them being a play by Willy Russell called Educating Rita. I read that book in year 11 when I returned to high school and my English teacher loved it because he believed that it showed us how an education can change us. After reading Pygmalion I believed that that play was left for dead (and still do). However there are differences, namely that the status of women in the mid-twentieth century had changed dramatically. However, the theme is still the same, in that a woman from the working class, through education, was able to lift herself out of the working class.Another spawn would be an Eddie Murphy movie called Trading Places. Here two incredibly wealthy men make a bet that they could turn a bum into a successful Wall Street Trader, and turn the successful Wall Street Trader into a common criminal. Like Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, they succeed, but further, they have no understanding of the power of education, because after turning the bum into a successful trader, they realise that they cannot simply send him back to the streets. He has become educated, and in becoming educated he has the power to fight back, which he does so successfully.It is a shame that Shaw has disappeared into relative obscurity. I do not see any of his plays being performed (though being stuck in the little backwater that is Adelaide means that we see very little in the way of good theatre, or more correctly, what I consider good theatre). Still, beggars can't be choosers, but the educated have the world at their doorstep.

[barbora8m · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Come on, it is classic ! The story is pretty simple, though truly charming. I wish I was Eliza Doolittle !

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lovely, lovely story well-written, amusing, wonderful characters. A modern classic.

[la12hernandez · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like the attached ending in the book. There was no real need to go into what happens to Eliza after the play ends.

[maccy_p · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Other than the amusing OCD-ness of Shaw's (pages of) stage directions, I found this an enjoyable play. Though My Fair Lady did stick very close, almost word for word, to this play, I thought that many of the characters were made more jovial and positive in the film. Higgins particularly is very serious in the play and sticks to his ways; in the film his character becomes softer and less strict.There are also a number of similarities with Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'; Higgins tames Eliza in a similar fashion. The ending of the play is frustrating. Shaw doesn't round it off in the play scrip, but in an added prose piece at the end.

[soniaandree_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This play has been a favourite of mine, and, somehow, I identified with the heroine. Having learnt English as a foreign language was an interesting experience, and, like her, I could not unlearn what I had taken great pains to learn. So when she decided to take action against her tutors, she was on an equal footing, because she had really become a 'lady', but in one of her tutor's eyes, she was still a flower-selling girl. It was wrong of them to think that their teaching would have for sole consequence a change of language and behaviour, as the transformation had gone deeper than that. The musical movie based on it is 'My fair lady', but is more American than English. Nonetheless, to read and see both is quite a good way to see how the play was understood. The play is highly recommended.

[nules_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

An interesting play, I call it. It is much like the movie /My Fair Lady/. It’s fairly short.

[iron_queen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A geniunely funny and charming play, with a fascinating message about the function of manners with regards to a class-based society. The characters are lovable and entertaining, even if some of them are more human than others. Higgins will always be amusing to watch, no matter how you slice it: he is an immature, overly-cultured little boy whose intellect so eclipses emotion that, to him, intellectual pursuits are passion. Eliza is also fun, after she somehow develops a sharp mind with Higgins' cultivation.However, I had one major criticism that almost ruined the entire play for me. Call me a swooning, hormonal romantic, but I really wanted Eliza and Higgins to get together in the end! I perfectly understand Shaw's explanation at the end about how they could never have married because not only is Higgins not the marrying type due to the admiration he holds for his mother, but because Eliza refuses to submit herself to him, to be the Galatea to his Pygmalion. But still, all that chemistry seems like so much of waste when she goes and marries Freddy, that love-struck milquetoast. I couldn't help but write a mental fanfiction about Eliza's private fantasy about Higgins comes true, in which they are stuck on a remote island together and she seduces him into "making love like any other man." Guess that's just the hopeless romance-whore in me.

[mickyfine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A radio drama production of Shaw's classic tale of Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgins. The production is solid but not sparkling as with some other audio productions I've listened to from the BBC. However, the recording also includes a shorter radio play "The B Word" which is about the production of the play, GBS's relationship with Mrs. Patrick Campbell who played Eliza, and the scandal over the use of the word "bloody" towards the end of the first half of the play, which was a delight to listen to and worth the price of entry.

[lara335 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thought-provoking play where Higgins as a bet takes on a common flower-seller and trains her to pass as a 'lady'. Interesting 'sequel' where Shaw explains why Higgins and Eliza would never work as a romantic couple, and telling how Eliza lived beyond the play's ending.

[siubhank · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the original story that 'My Fair Lady" was based o. The original is more gritty and less huerous than the movie. Shaw, not at his best, but in his amusing phase.

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

George Bernard Shaw's play that was later adapted into My Fair Lady for stage and film. The plot turns on how the way a person speaks sets their social status; changing their speech allows a person to move in different circles. There is more depth in the social commentary, hinging on whether the changeling will be happy in their new circumstances, but the play is an enjoyable comedy at several levels. Read August 2011.

[im1imagined · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Utterly fantastic - one of my favourite plays. Though really...Eliza should have married Henry.

[auntieclio · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I went into this warily because My Fair Lady has been a favorite movie. The preface sets the tone for the sharp commentary on Britain's class system. The play itself will be very familiar to anyone who has seen My Fair Lady. What wasn't familiar was the ending and here's where I found the most delight. My Fair Lady would have been a very different and much more interesting movie had it ended the way Shaw wanted.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Man, I loved this play. Reminded me of Oscar Wilde - so much, actually, that I was surprised when I looked Shaw up and he apparently wasn't gay. It's really, really funny. And smart. Awesome shit, man. Awesome shit.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Leuk en vlot, spitse dialogen. Sociaal document: moeilijkheid van klasse te doorbreken. Verwijzingen naar Frankenstein zeer duidelijk

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of the few plays listed in my catalog. I've never spent much time looking into this side of literature - a shame, considering what's out there. I read - several times - this play simply because I had to, for the engrossing OU course "Introduction to the Humanities." A lot of it has stuck with me, and probably because of the exposure. Nicely done, GBS.

[madepercy-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this particular edition as it includes a "sequel". I have read this before but probably never with so much attention. The "learned Bernard" packs so much in 150 pages it would take one months to study the play thoroughly. Was it about class and gender, ignited by the memory of the changes brought about by the Great War? Or was it something more far-reaching, more contemporary, more futuristic?

[iudita_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this play but I found the ending so very unsatisfying. It is so abrupt and unfinished. It feels like he simply stopped writing in the middle of a thought and just walked away.

[Zulaika Elhadi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So this is the play my fair lady is based on. The ending is quite different, I understand the end in the movie, but I can't say I understand this ending. But very interesting and quite funny.

[joririchardson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite works of British theater. A funny story with a sad ending. I love the deep characters and epic storyline underneath the comedy.Though normally I like to read the book first, I was grateful for having seen the movie already while reading this play. Audrey Hepburn is truly the essence of Eliza.I can't really say that "Pygmalion" was better or worse than "My Fair Lady" (the movie adaptation) because they were nearly identical. The script might as well have been read from George Bernard Shaw's writing itself. Shaw has very intricate, detailed descriptions about all the scenes and emotions of each scene, which I loved. It made this book feel somewhere in between a work of theater and a work of fiction. And, like the dialogue, the movie seemed to have followed these descriptions down to the last lace curtain.A charming, highly enjoyable piece of literature.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Leuk en vlot, spitse dialogen. Sociaal document: moeilijkheid van klasse te doorbreken. Verwijzingen naar Frankenstein zeer duidelijk

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the original play version much better known as the musical My Fair Lady. As such, this lacks the variety of scenes of the latter, with the Ambassador's ball taking place off-stage and no Ascot race day. The hilarious scenes of Eliza's elocution lessons ("the rain in Spain is mainly in the plain" etc. are missing here). Aside from that, the dialogue is nearly identical and sparkles and flows like quicksilver though, as when I saw the musical a few days ago, I was irritated by the way Eliza is treated not only by Higgins, but perhaps even more so by the housekeeper Mrs Pearce, as though she is little more than an object with no feelings. In any case, the play/musical are both well worth reading/watching.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Here is the play that "My Fair Lady" was based on. Written by George Bernard Shaw in 1916, this is story of a bet between to bachelor linguists - on if they can make a flower girl sound like Duchess, and pass her off as one at an important party.This book mostly focuses on Professor Henry Higgins. While Liza, the flower girl, is present and finally becomes a much larger character by the end, Mr. Higgins really doesn't get why he is an ass, even his mother thinks so. There are certainly funny bits, especially with Clara spouting very crass slang, thinking its "in style". I especially liked the "sequel", which explains what happens to the main characters- the Bachelor Henry Higgins stays a bachelor in this story, but I found the ending to be very enlightening in what Shaw saw in his characters. This book is rather more satirical and dark than the musical it inspired. Its an easy fun read.

[shulera1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't crazy about Pygmalion, but I liked it well enough, so it gets a solid three stars from me. I was expecting the story to be more about the process of Liza's transformation from flower girl to lady, but in actually it focused on the way she was treated by others.

That being said, I think it's fascinating to look at how Liza views herself and her worth, and that she's so conscious of the importance of how others view her. She flat-out says as much to Pickering towards the end of the play. So often women are portrayed as self-deprecating and humble to the point of shaming themselves, but not so with Liza. From the very beginning she holds herself in high esteem, and gives Higgins the what-for when he doesn't see her as worth much.

I am bothered by the fact that Higgins never apologizes for the way he objectifies and uses Liza, but I'm bothered even more so by his lack of even really seeing the problem. Liza explains how she feels to Higgins, but he just doesn't get it, saying that he treats everyone the same, so what does it matter? He has a deeply ingrained sense of self-importance and righteousness that got under my skin for the entire story and left me fuming when he never seemed to feel bad about any of it. But, that's life I guess, and it probably would have felt inauthentic if he had changed.

I would recommend this if you're looking for:
*a short read
*something that's referenced a lot
*a strong female character who steals the spotlight

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although he based the tales in Metamorphoses on existing stories, Ovid presents them with a freshness and originality that made them uniquely his own. His writing is vivid, elegant, and succinct, with the stories including "Pygmalion"generally moving swiftly from beginning to end without tedious digressions or inflated language. Metamorphoses was highly popular with readers of the Augustan age (27 BC to AD 14, when Caesar Augustus ruled the Roman Empire) and became one of the best read books of the Renaissance, influencing Shakespeare and other prominent writers. The themes and motifs are as timely today as they were 2,000 years ago. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures that came to life and 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. It is with this background that George Bernard Shaw took up this myth and made it his own with the first performance occurring in April, 1914. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women's independence.Like all of Shaw's plays the wordplay is a delight rivaling Shakespeare in that realm.

[danlai-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm not sure how I would feel about this book now, but as a high school freshman, this was the last thing I wanted to read.

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well done ensemble recording of this famous play. I particularly appreciated the fact that Shaw's commentary (both before and after the play) and stage directions (for the most part) were included.I was a little surprised by Shaw's exposition explaining that Eliza does NOT end up marrying Higgins but Freddy!!! His description of what results from this marriage is satirical in tone but he is quite definite in this sequel to the events of the play.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amusing play with some funny dialogue and enjoyable characters, but what really elevates it is the portions that Shaw wrote out demonstrating that he knew what the expectations of the audience were and how foolish such genre cliches often are. Awareness of his material and the average reader's thought process allows Shaw to force you to think more critically about what you've just consumed, which is always a plus in my book.

[atimco-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For those of us who are familiar only with the movie version titled My Fair Lady, the real story of this play might come as something of a surprise. It did to me! I don't want to spoil anything, but it's fascinating to see how the version starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn was changed to please its audience in 1964. Apparently the end of the play has been a tug-of-war between George Bernard Shaw and the public (and some critics) since its first performance in 1912. I have to say I'm with the public... sorry, George.This LA Theatre production is a live play that was recorded to create an audio performance. So along with the excitement and energy of a live recording, you also get the flaws: different volume levels as the actors move toward or away from the microphones, audience applause, etc. But, taking it for what it is, I enjoyed it very much. It is brilliantly acted; Shannon Cochran as Eliza is especially good. I also liked the actor who plays Mr. Doolittle, and really everyone performs well. It was fun to imagine the actors on a stage rather than in front of a microphone in a recording studio. The play is very witty and nonsensical, abounding in comic misunderstandings and hilarious reversals of cultural norms. It is, in a word, George Bernard Shaw. And yet for all its fun, it does address serious issues such as women's independence and the strict social class system that based so much of its value judgments on external accoutrements (like a person's accent). Very little is safe from Shaw's satirical eye, but somehow his characters escape being cardboard cutouts displaying particular vices. They're attractive and fun, even the selfish ones. It's the good humor behind everything that does it.Though this is certainly no studio production, it was very enjoyable. I'm not really one for reading plays; they are designed to be experienced as a performance, not a silent reading. If you can't see a play, the next-best thing is to hear it. I recommend it!