Theatre Row’s ‘Pygmalion’: Not Your Mother’s ‘My Fair Lady’

The rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain. At least not in this current iteration of George Bernard Shaw’s razor-sharp, wildly entertaining story of Professor Henry Higgins and his mentee, Eliza Doolittle. The production marks the Gingold Theatrical Group’s 20th anniversary.

Shaw wrote “Pygmalion” as a form of self-analysis. He was a poor, uneducated Dubliner who, at 19, escaped his dreary life to create a new world for himself in London. The current production’s director, David Staller, concludes that, “He was Eliza, desperately needing a Higgins. Not finding one, he became his own mentor.”

Staller continues, “We decided to fully embrace all of Shaw’s original notions for the play,” so none of Shaw’s dialogue within the 1945 (and last) version of the play has been altered.

Staller also addressed the obvious issue when performing this work of Shaw’s: People seem to love to compare “Pygmalion” and its musical counterpart, “My Fair Lady.”

It helps to remember that the brilliantly crafted musical is based on Shaw’s Oscar-winning 1938 screenplay for the film and not his play, which derives from the Pygmalion myth about a brilliant sculptor in ancient Greece who sculpts the perfect companion—Galatea—then prays to the gods to bring her to life.

The most powerful differences between the two versions are the portrayals of the leads. Staller explains, “When the musical was created in the ‘50s, the trope of a woman’s role in society was that she wanted to get married. That is pretty much completely contrary to everything Shaw was trying to encourage in life in “Pygmalion”; Eliza wants to support herself and not have to answer to anybody.”

Also in the musical, Higgins is a harsh, aloof, judgmental, and unkind man of advanced years. In the play, he’s a quirky and eccentric 40, deeply passionate and excited about his work.

Higgins teaches Eliza, who is about 20, to become the person she longs to be; she teaches Higgins to connect to his own humanity and heart.

What begins as a game of manners and accents soon becomes something deeper.

Says Staller, “Higgins’s journey is far more profound than Eliza’s. All she needs is education to proceed. With him, it’s the idea of hiding from an emotional life. She forces him to become a full human being. That is Shaw’s hope for all of us.”

Apparently, modern audiences are relating to the early-20th-century characters. “Because of the world we’re living in, women are finding it extremely useful and empowering to see this Eliza find her footing, and we’re getting such a great response,” says Staller. “With men, at the end, the journey for Higgins is that he finally realizes the entire play has been a preface to him figuring out his life without having to hide from his feelings, his heart, and his inner emotional life.”

The director calls the play “a gift to us,” and says it serves as a reminder not to shut ourselves off from life, to keep our hearts open and never to hide, either from the world or from ourselves.

Because Shaw rightly assumed that the average person had no idea what Pygmalion was, he incorporated Greek goddesses to clue in the audience of the original ancient Greek myth.

“I felt it suited our needs for both storytelling and budget to have four entrancing gods guide us through this story, and also to play all the roles required,” adds Staller. “The re-creation by scenic designer Lindsay Genevieve Fuori of the brilliant artist Al Hirschfeld’s temple completes the assignment.”

Even though the play is over 100 years old, it speaks to contemporary life. “He presented the play in 1914, which was at the beginning of World War I, at a time when people were terrified. And when are we not afraid about getting through today or tomorrow? When you think of the struggle that we’re all going through and rights being taken away from us, seemingly daily, the idea of the individual struggle has never seemed more potent.”

Staller sums up by saying, “Shaw’s plays deal with the idea of challenging everything, questioning everything, everything we’re told or taught. Even if you end up agreeing with what you’re told, the idea is that you are your own creation.”

George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion at Theatre Row, 410 W. 42nd St., through Nov. 22. Tickets available at GingoldGroup.org.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel “The Last Single Woman In New York City.”