Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

I first saw the film My Fair Lady (1964) when I was five years old, and I have viewed it many times since.  I liked it then, and I like it now. The film is an adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion (1912). It surprises me that I hadn't read the play earlier, but there it is (2013).

Henry Higgins makes a handsome living by teaching the nouveau riche to speak with a cultured accent so they can pass into polite society.  Two accidental meetings present Higgins with the opportunity of teaching the Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle and passing her off as a duchess; it is a challenge he finds irresistible.  Eliza and Higgins develop a love-hate relationship in the process, and the young, good-looking but penniless Freddy Hill provides the third point of the eternal triangle.  Two questions are posed: Will Higgins succeed in his plan for Eliza? Will Eliza choose Higgins or Freddy?

The title of the play refers to the ancient Greek myth of the sculptor Pygmalion who falls hopelessly in love with one of his creations, a statue of a beautiful woman whom he calls Galatea.  Pygmalion prays to the gods to bring his statue to life.  His wish is granted, but does it make either him or Galatea happy?

George Bernard Shaw's play has certainly given life to some very memorable characters.  There is the intelligent, talented but socially inept Henry Higgins, a "confirmed bachelor".  With him is the kind and mostly thoughtful Colonel Pickering.  Eliza is a resourceful, almost ambitious, young woman with a firm moral character.  And her father Alfred Doolittle is a honey-tongued cadger of the first order.

The banter in the play is sparkling and, at times, profound.  Shaw has endearingly rendered Eliza's versatile Cockney expression of surprise and disbelief as "Ah-ah-oh-ow-ow-ow-oo!", and there are more than a few of them in the play.

Higgins gives us some nuggets of wisdom:

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby!

and

It is these little things that matter, Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money.

and

Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble. Theres only one way of escaping trouble; and that's killing things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.

Eliza  grows as a person.  Early on we are treated to her less than eloquent judgements on the world:

What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

Later, she is able to sum up her difficulties with Higgins in razor-sharp terms:

... the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

And, of course, there is the ever-philosophical panhandling Alfred Doolittle:

I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

A great point of interest for me was comparing the ending of Pygmalion with the ending of My Fair Lady: one entices speculation, while the other, frankly, palls.  I'll leave you to work out which is which.