Whenever you’re watching a Jane Austen movie—or any period piece—and the humor is subtle, you feel special if you catch it, especially with those accents making the dialogue difficult to hear. It’s work, isn’t it? Well, Pygmalion is not like that.
For those of you who might think Pygmalion is a stuffy, 100-year-old PLAY written by George Bernard Shaw, well, stop rolling your eyes and start rolling your “R”s. I was rrreally amazed at this show. Pygmalion had me laughing in my seat. So many zingers, such great delivery—it felt like I was listening to modern-day dialogue, and I was told that the language was not modernized.
Unfortunately for Pygmalion, it seems it’s known mostly for having inspired that other show—My Fair Lady—which it did, but the play’s significance reaches beyond Audrey Hepburn. If you don’t know the plot: Professor of speech Henry Higgins (played by Robert Sean Leonard) bets his pal Colonel Pickering (Paxton Whitehead) he can turn a flower seller into a lady, and pass her off at a high-society gala. Real-life Brit Charlotte Parry plays Eliza Doolittle to brilliant effect, and Don Sparks makes Mr. Doolittle the most lovable scoundrel (owww!). The sets and costumes, designed by Alexander Dodge and Robert Morgan respectively, transport you back a century—and, in our current age of spare sets and digital screens, they’re refreshingly complex and detailed. I say! Gohh see this play to-day.
Through February 17
Old Globe Theatre
By George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Nicholas Martin
Tickets from $29
Charlotte Parry as Eliza Doolittle and Robert Sean Leonard as Henry Higgins
Henry DiRocco
