#30 - Pygmalion

One of the starkest differences between writing a novel and writing a play is the amount of control the artist has over the result. A novel is crafted, more or less, by a single person. Plays go through layers of adaptation and reshaping before even the original work hits the stage. Actors, directors, workers of all kinds immediately get their hands into it, and some writers cannot deal with this sort of sharing. There are ways around it - Our Town goes into obscenely detailed stage directions, lighting and set instructions, and emotive cues - but for many, it's a struggle that starts after the first changes are already underway. In Pygmalion's case, Shaw wrestled with the ending. Theatregoers wanted a happy ending to walk away with, while Shaw's original work demanded a bittersweet one. So as director after director, producer after producer changed the ending to suit their audience, Shaw fought back harder and harder. He inserted a lengthy epilogue explaining his thinking and showing why the happy ending was false, which was attached to all subsequent publications. There are now some productions using the original text, but the most famous examples - from the original production to the musical adaption My Fair Lady - still have the cloying, optimistic take. Shaw's reason for disliking the happy ending make perfect sense. The play is a critique of many of the values of the London of the day - elitism, misogyny, egotism - and rewarding Henry Higgins, the most callous one of all, for this completely ruins any message Shaw was trying to send. Certainly the corrupted version still allows for Eliza to make her stand, have her "bit back", but it dampens the vindictiveness that was so essential to the morality of the work. 

Many of the things I enjoyed about Pygmalion were the way in which Shaw made his criticism. Henry Higgins, it should be understood, is a villain, and each character's interactions with him show that in a slightly different light, but unlike most villains he actually gets to say his piece about WHY he is the way he is. In one of, in my opinion, one of the strongest passages, he explains his theory of interpersonal communication, and for a split second it makes sense and he's actually a heroic example of standing by principles and then just as quickly the gaps in the explanation become apparent and then he is again a bully and a brute. Another highlight of the work was Mr. Doolittle's rise and fall - more amusing than anything, it held a lot of sincere quips about the joys of poverty, something that reminded me of Anna Karenina and the ode to the rural life.

9/10