Comedy Pygmalion. Bernard Shaw "Pygmalion"

Pygmalion(full title: Pygmalion: A Fantasy Novel in Five Acts, English Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts listen)) is a play written by Bernard Shaw in 1913. The play tells the story of phonetics professor Henry Higgins, who made a bet with his new acquaintance, British Army Colonel Pickering. The essence of the bet was that Higgins could teach the flower girl Eliza Doolittle the pronunciation and manner of communication of high society in a few months.

The play's title is an allusion to the myth of Pygmalion.

Characters

• Eliza Doolittle, flower girl. Attractive, but not having a secular upbringing (or rather, having a street upbringing), about eighteen to twenty years old. She is wearing a black straw hat, which has been badly damaged in its lifetime from London dust and soot and is hardly familiar with a brush. Her hair is some kind of mouse color, not found in nature. A tan black coat, narrow at the waist, barely reaching the knees; from under it a brown skirt and a canvas apron are visible. The boots have apparently also seen better days. Without a doubt, she is clean in her own way, but next to the ladies she definitely seems like a mess. Her facial features are not bad, but her skin condition leaves much to be desired; In addition, it is noticeable that she needs the services of a dentist
• Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics
• Pickering, Colonel
• Mrs Higgins, professor's mother
• Mrs Pierce, Higgins's housekeeper
• Alfred Doolittle, Eliza's father. An elderly, but still very strong man in the work clothes of a scavenger and in a hat, the brim of which was cut off in front and covered the back of his neck and shoulders. The facial features are energetic and characteristic: one can feel a person who is equally unfamiliar with fear and conscience. He has an extremely expressive voice - a consequence of the habit of giving full vent to his feelings
• Mrs Eynsford Hill, guest of Mrs. Higgins
• Miss Clara Eynsford Hill, her daughter
• Freddie, son of Mrs Eynsford Hill

Plot

On a summer evening, the rain pours like buckets. Passers-by run to Covent Garden Market and the portico of St. Pavel, where several people had already taken refuge, including an elderly lady and her daughter; they are in evening dresses, waiting for Freddie, the lady's son, to find a taxi and come for them. Everyone, except one person with a notebook, impatiently peers into the streams of rain. Freddie appears in the distance, having not found a taxi, and runs to the portico, but on the way he runs into a street flower girl, hurrying to hide from the rain, and knocks a basket of violets out of her hands. She bursts into abuse. A man with a notebook is hastily writing something down. The girl laments that her violets are missing and begs the colonel standing right there to buy a bouquet. To get rid of it, he gives her some change, but does not take flowers. One of the passersby draws the attention of the flower girl, a sloppily dressed and unwashed girl, that the man with the notebook is clearly scribbling a denunciation against her. The girl begins to whine. He, however, assures that he is not from the police, and surprises everyone present by accurately determining the place of birth of each of them by their pronunciation.

Freddie's mother sends her son back to look for a taxi. Soon, however, the rain stops, and she and her daughter go to the bus stop. The Colonel shows interest in the abilities of the man with the notebook. He introduces himself as Henry Higgins, creator of the Higgins Universal Alphabet. The colonel turns out to be the author of the book “Spoken Sanskrit”. His name is Pickering. He lived in India for a long time and came to London specifically to meet Professor Higgins. The professor also always wanted to meet the colonel. They are about to go to dinner at the colonel’s hotel when the flower girl again starts asking to buy flowers from her. Higgins throws a handful of coins into her basket and leaves with the colonel. The flower girl sees that she now owns, by her standards, a huge sum. When Freddie arrives with the taxi he finally hailed, she gets into the car and, noisily slamming the door, drives away.

The next morning, Higgins demonstrates his phonographic equipment to Colonel Pickering at his home. Suddenly, Higgins's housekeeper, Mrs. Pierce, reports that a certain very simple girl wants to talk to the professor. Yesterday's flower girl enters. She introduces herself as Eliza Dolittle and says that she wants to take phonetics lessons from the professor, because with her pronunciation she cannot get a job. The day before she had heard that Higgins was giving such lessons. Eliza is sure that he will happily agree to work off the money that yesterday, without looking, he threw into her basket. Of course, it’s funny for him to talk about such sums, but Pickering offers Higgins a bet. He encourages him to prove that in a matter of months he can, as he assured the day before, turn a street flower girl into a duchess. Higgins finds this offer tempting, especially since Pickering is ready, if Higgins wins, to pay the entire cost of Eliza's education. Mrs. Pierce takes Eliza to the bathroom to wash her.

After some time, Eliza's father comes to Higgins. He is a scavenger, a simple man, but he amazes the professor with his innate eloquence. Higgins asks Dolittle for permission to keep his daughter and gives him five pounds for it. When Eliza appears, already washed, in a Japanese robe, the father at first does not even recognize his daughter. A couple of months later, Higgins brings Eliza to his mother's house, just on her reception day. He wants to find out whether it is already possible to introduce a girl into secular society. Mrs. Eynsford Hill and her daughter and son are visiting Mrs. Higgins. These are the same people with whom Higgins stood under the portico of the cathedral on the day he first saw Eliza. However, they do not recognize the girl. Eliza at first behaves and talks like a high-society lady, and then goes on to talk about her life and uses such street expressions that everyone present is amazed. Higgins pretends that this is new social jargon, thus smoothing over the situation. Eliza leaves the crowd, leaving Freddie in complete delight.

After this meeting, he begins to send ten-page letters to Eliza. After the guests leave, Higgins and Pickering vying with each other, enthusiastically telling Mrs. Higgins about how they work with Eliza, how they teach her, take her to the opera, to exhibitions, and dress her. Mrs. Higgins finds that they are treating the girl like a living doll. She agrees with Mrs. Pearce, who believes that they "don't think about anything."

A few months later, both experimenters take Eliza to a high society reception, where she is a dizzying success, everyone takes her for a duchess. Higgins wins the bet.

Arriving home, he enjoys the fact that the experiment, from which he was already tired, is finally over. He behaves and talks in his usual rude manner, not paying the slightest attention to Eliza. The girl looks very tired and sad, but at the same time she is dazzlingly beautiful. It is noticeable that irritation is accumulating in her.

She ends up throwing his shoes at Higgins. She wants to die. She doesn’t know what will happen to her next, how to live. After all, she became a completely different person. Higgins assures that everything will work out. She, however, manages to hurt him, throw him off balance and thereby at least a little revenge for herself.

At night, Eliza runs away from home. The next morning, Higgins and Pickering lose their heads when they see that Eliza is gone. They are even trying to find her with the help of the police. Higgins feels like he has no hands without Eliza. He doesn’t know where his things are, or what he has scheduled for the day. Mrs Higgins arrives. Then they report the arrival of Eliza's father. Dolittle has changed a lot. Now he looks like a wealthy bourgeois. He lashes out at Higgins indignantly because it is his fault that he had to change his lifestyle and now become much less free than he was before. It turns out that several months ago Higgins wrote to a millionaire in America, who founded branches of the League of Moral Reforms all over the world, that Dolittle, a simple scavenger, is now the most original moralist in all of England. That millionaire had already died, and before his death he bequeathed to Dolittle a share in his trust for three thousand annual income, on the condition that Dolittle would give up to six lectures a year in his League of Moral Reforms. He laments that today, for example, he even has to officially marry someone with whom he has lived for several years without registering a relationship. And all this because he is now forced to look like a respectable bourgeois. Mrs. Higgins is very happy that the father can finally take care of his changed daughter as she deserves. Higgins, however, does not want to hear about “returning” Eliza to Dolittle.

Mrs. Higgins says she knows where Eliza is. The girl agrees to return if Higgins asks her for forgiveness. Higgins does not agree to do this. Eliza enters. She expresses gratitude to Pickering for his treatment of her as a noble lady. It was he who helped Eliza change, despite the fact that she had to live in the house of the rude, slovenly and ill-mannered Higgins. Higgins is amazed. Eliza adds that if he continues to “pressure” her, she will go to Professor Nepean, Higgins’ colleague, and become his assistant and inform him of all the discoveries made by Higgins. After an outburst of indignation, the professor finds that now her behavior is even better and more dignified than when she looked after his things and brought him slippers. Now, he is sure, they will be able to live together not just as two men and one stupid girl, but as “three friendly old bachelors.”

Eliza goes to her father's wedding. The afterword says that Eliza chose to marry Freddie, and they opened their own flower shop and lived on their own money. Despite the store and her family, she managed to interfere with the household in Wimpole Street. She and Higgins continued to tease each other, but she still remained interested in him.

Productions

• - First productions of Pygmalion in Vienna and Berlin
• - The London premiere of Pygmalion took place at His Majesty's Theatre. Starring: Stella Patrick Campbell and Herbert Birb-Tree
• - First production in Russia (Moscow). Moscow Drama Theater E. M. Sukhodolskaya. Starring: Nikolai Radin
• - “Pygmalion” State Academic Maly Theater of Russia (Moscow). Starring: Daria Zerkalova, Konstantin Zubov. For staging and performing the role of Dr. Higgins in the play, Konstantin Zubov was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1946)
• - “Pygmalion” (radio play) (Moscow). Starring: Daria Zerkalova
• - "Pygmalion" State Academic Art Theater named after. J. Rainis of the Latvian SSR
• - musical “My Fair Lady” with music by Frederick Loewe (based on the play “Pygmalion”) (New York)
• - “Pygmalion” (translation into Ukrainian by Nikolai Pavlov). National Academic Drama Theater named after. Ivan Franko (Kyiv). Staged by Sergei Danchenko
• - Musical “My Fair Lady”, F. Lowe, State Academic Theater “Moscow Operetta”
• - Musical “Eliza”, St. Petersburg State Musical and Drama Theater Buff
• My Fair Lady (musical comedy in 2 acts). Chelyabinsk State Academic Drama Theater named after. CM. Zwillinga (director - People's Artist of Russia - Naum Orlov)
• "Pygmalion" - International Theater Center "Rusich". Staged by P. Safonov
• “Pygmalion, or almost MY FAIRY LADY” - Dunin-Martsinkevich Drama and Comedy Theater (Bobruisk). Staged by Sergei Kulikovsky
• 2012 - musical performance, staged by Elena Tumanova. Student Theater "GrandEx" (NAPKS, Simferopol)

Film adaptations

• The episode of writing the play “Pygmalion” is reflected in the play “Dear Liar” by Jerome Kielty
• From the play, the Anglo-American interjection “wow” came into widespread use, which was used by the flower girl Eliza Doolittle, a representative of the London “lower classes”, before her “ennoblement”
• For the script for the film Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw wrote several scenes that were not in the original version of the play. This extended version of the play has been published and is used in productions

Notes

History of creation

Comedy B. Shaw "Pygmalion" written in 1912-1913. The title of the play is associated with images of antiquity. The sculptor Pygmalion, the hero of ancient Greek myth, hated women and avoided them. He was captivated by art. He embodied his craving for beauty in the statue of Galatea, a girl whom he carved from ivory. Fascinated by his own creation, Pygmalion fell in love with Galatea and married her after the goddess Aphrodite revived her at his request. However, B. Shaw's play is not a literary retelling of this myth. The playwright, true to his passion for paradoxes, decided to revive the myth in a new way - the more unexpected, the better. Galatea from the myth was gentle and submissive,"Galatea" in the play Shaw was supposed to rebel against her"creator". Pygmalion and Galatea of ​​antiquity get married, but the heroes of the play should not do this. And in the end"Galatea" The show had to be revived"Pygmalion" teach him human feelings. The action was transferred to modern England, the sculptor turned into a linguist professor who conducts a scientific experiment.

When Higgins took on the experiment, the last thing he thought about was Eliza. The main thing for him was to ensure the effectiveness of his teaching method. And when the tension of several months of continuous work subsided, and there was no longer a need for the presence of a girl in the professor’s house, the scientist devoted to science, who did not pay any attention to women, was surprised to realize that he could not imagine his life without Eliza. In Shaw's play, the process of transforming a petrified scientist into a man took place, the opposite of the myth. A simple flower girl made strings sound in the soul of aristocrat Higgins that he didn’t even know about. Unlike the ancient myth, in which Pygmalion himself created the beautiful Galatea, Shaw’s hero only polishes his personality, which gradually changes not only himself, but also his transformer. End"Pygmalion" also unexpected. The viewer expects a wedding. And indeed, all the characters in the play leave for the wedding at the end of the day, but not Eliza and Higgins, this newest Galatea and Pygmalion, but Eliza’s father and her stepmother. What will happen next to the main characters, the author leaves it up to the viewer to decide. The reader can learn from the afterword how Eliza marries Freddie, but her friendly relations with Higgins and Pickering will not stop even after her marriage.

The first production of the play in early 1914 was a resounding success. Since then"Pygmalion" has toured all the leading theaters in the world and enjoys constant stage success.

Productions

1913 - First productions"Pygmalion" in Vienna and Berlin

1914 - Premiere of "Pygmalion" in London took place at His Majesty's Theatre. Starring: Stella Patrick Campbell and Herbert Birb-Tree

1914 - First production in Russia (Moscow). Moscow Drama Theater E. M. Sukhodolskaya. Starring: Nikolai Radin

1943 - "Pygmalion" State Academic Maly Theater of Russia (Moscow). Starring: Daria Zerkalova, Konstantin Zubov. For staging and performing the role of Dr. Higgins in the play, Konstantin Zubov was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1946)

1948 - "Pygmalion" ( radio play) (Moscow). Starring: Daria Zerkalova

1951 - “Pygmalion” State Academic Art Theater. J. Rainis of the Latvian SSR

1956 - musical " My fair lady» to the music of Frederick Lowe (based on the play"Pygmalion") (New York)

2000 - "Pygmalion" ( translation into Ukrainian by Nikolay Pavlov). National Academic Drama Theater named after. Ivan Franko (Kyiv). Staged by Sergei Danchenko

2005 - Musical " My fair lady», F. Lowe, State Academic Theater« Moscow Operetta»

2011 - Musical “Eliza”, St. Petersburg State Musical and Drama Theater Buff

My Fair Lady (musical comedy in 2 acts). Chelyabinsk State Academic Drama Theater named after. CM. Zwillinga (director - People's Artist of Russia - Naum Orlov)

"Pygmalion" - International Theater Center"Rusich". Staged by P. Safonov

« Pygmalion, or almost MY FAIRY LADY» - Drama and Comedy Theater named after Dunin-Martsinkevich (Bobruisk). Staged by Sergei Kulikovsky

2012 - musical performance, staged by Elena Tumanova. Student Theater "GrandEx" (NAPKS, Simferopol)

^ Interesting Facts:

Bernard Shaw - British writer, author of the play"Pygmalion" - is the second most popular (after Shakespeare!) playwright in the English theater.

The play was written in 1912 and its first performances took place in Vienna and Berlin.

It is believed that the famous Anglo-American expression" Wow! "("Wow!") came into widespread use precisely from the play"Pygmalion" - it was actively used by the ignorant Eliza Doolittle before her transformation into a lady of high society.

The Broadway premiere of the musical brought worldwide fame to the play.« My fair lady», which took place in 1956. The show immediately became extremely popular, and tickets for it were sold out six months in advance.

In 1964, Bernard Shaw's play became the basis for a film starring Audrey Hepburn. The film received awards Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA.

Consider the play that Bernard Shaw created ("Pygmalion"). A brief summary of it is presented in this article. This play takes place in London. It was based on the myth of Pygmalion.

The summary begins with the following events. One summer evening it rains heavily. Passers-by, trying to escape from him, run towards the Covent Garden market, as well as to the portico of St. Pavel, under which several people had already taken refuge, including an elderly lady and her daughter, dressed in evening dresses. They are waiting for the lady's son, Freddie, to find a taxi and come here for them. All these people, except for the man with the notebook, peer impatiently into the streams of rain.

Freddie gives money to the flower girl

Freddy appears in the distance. He did not find a taxi and runs to the portico. However, on the way, Freddie accidentally bumps into a street flower girl who is in a hurry to take cover from the rain, and knocks a basket of violets out of the girl’s hands. The flower girl bursts into obscenities. A man standing at the portico is hastily writing something down in a notebook. The girl laments that her violets are missing and begs the colonel standing here to buy a bouquet. He gives her some change to get rid of it, but doesn’t take flowers. One passer-by draws the attention of a girl, an unwashed and sloppily dressed flower girl, to the fact that a man with a notebook is probably scribbling a denunciation against her. She starts whining. A passerby, however, assures that this man is not from the police, and surprises everyone present by accurately determining the origin of everyone by pronunciation.

The lady, Freddie's mother, sends her son back to find a taxi. Meanwhile, the rain stops and she walks with her daughter to the bus stop.

Henry Higgins meeting with Colonel Pickering

"Pygmalion" continues with the following events. A summary of Higgins' meeting with Pickering is presented below.

The colonel is interested in who is holding the notebook in his hands. He introduces himself as Henry Higgins and says that he is the author of the “Higgins Universal Alphabet.” The colonel himself turns out to be the creator of a book called “Conversational Sanskrit”. His last name is Pickering. This man lived for a long time in India, and came to London specifically to meet Higgins. Tom also wanted to meet the colonel for a long time. The two are going to go to the Colonel's hotel for dinner.

The flower girl gets a "great fortune"

But then the flower girl begins to ask again to buy flowers from her. Higgins throws a handful of coins into her basket and leaves with the colonel. The girl notices that she now owns, by her standards, a large fortune. When Freddie arrives with the taxi he finally hailed, she gets into the car and drives away, slamming the door noisily.

Eliza visits Professor Higgins

You are reading a description of the plot of a work created by George Bernard Shaw ("Pygmalion"). A summary is just an attempt to highlight the main events of the play.

The next morning, Higgins demonstrates his phonographic equipment to the Colonel at his home. Unexpectedly, his housekeeper, Mrs. Pierce, reports to Higgins that some very simple girl wants to talk to the professor. Yesterday's flower girl appears. The girl introduces herself to him and says that she wants to take phonetics lessons from the professor, since she cannot get a job with her pronunciation. Eliza had heard the day before that Higgins was giving these lessons. She is sure that he will happily agree to work off the money that he threw into her basket yesterday without looking.

The bet made by Pickering and Higgins

Of course, it’s funny for him to talk about such amounts. But Pickering offers a bet to Higgins. He encourages him to prove that in a matter of months, as he claimed the day before, he can turn a street flower girl into a duchess. Higgins finds it tempting. In addition, the colonel is ready, if he wins, to pay the cost of Eliza’s education. The girl is taken by Mrs. Pierce to the bathroom to clean up.

Meeting with Eliza's father

B. Shaw ("Pygmalion") continues his work with Eliza's meeting with her father. The summary of this episode is as follows. After some time, Eliza's father comes to Higgins. This is a simple man, a scavenger. However, he amazes the professor with his innate eloquence. Higgins asks him for permission to keep his daughter and gives him 5 pounds for this. When Eliza appears in a Japanese robe, already washed, Dolittle does not recognize her at first.

Eliza's success with Mrs Higgins

Higgins takes the girl to his mother's house a few months later. The professor wants to find out whether it is already possible to introduce her to Mrs. Higgins, Eynsford Hill is visiting with her son and daughter. These are the people with whom Higgins stood under the portico on the day he saw Eliza for the first time. However, they don't recognize the girl. At first, Eliza talks and behaves like a high society lady. But then she starts talking about her life and uses street language. Higgins tries to pretend that this is just new secular jargon, and thus smooths over the situation. The girl leaves the crowd, leaving Freddie in complete delight.

After this meeting, he begins to send Eliza letters on 10 pages. After the guests leave, Pickering and Higgins vying with each other to tell Mrs. Higgins how they teach Eliza, take her to exhibitions, to the opera, and dress her. She finds that they are treating this girl like a doll. Mrs. Higgins agrees with Mrs. Pearce, who believes that they are not thinking about anything.

Higgins wins the bet

After a few months, both experimenters take Eliza to a high-society reception. The girl is a dizzying success. Everyone thinks it's the Duchess. Higgins wins the bet.

Arriving home, the professor enjoys the fact that the experiment is finally finished, from which he is already a little tired. He talks and behaves in his usual rude manner, not paying the slightest attention to Eliza. The girl looks sad and tired, but still she is dazzlingly beautiful. Eliza's irritation begins to build.

Eliza runs away from home

Unable to bear it, the girl throws his shoes at the professor. She wants to die. The girl doesn’t know how to live, what will happen to her next. After all, she turned into a completely different person. Higgins says everything will work out. However, Eliza manages to hurt him. She throws the professor off balance and thereby avenges herself at least a little.

At night the girl runs away from home. In the morning, Pickering and Higgins lose their heads when they notice that Eliza is missing. They even involve the police in her search. Higgins feels like he has no hands without Eliza. He cannot find his things, does not know what tasks he has scheduled for the day.

The New Life of Dolittle the Scavenger (Pygmalion)

Mrs. Higgins comes to see her son. Then they report to Higgins about the arrival of the girl’s father. He has changed a lot and looks like a wealthy bourgeois. Dolittle lashes out in indignation at Higgins for the fact that, through his fault, he had to change his usual way of life and become a much less free person. It turned out that several months ago Higgins wrote to a millionaire in America, who founded branches of the Moral Reform League around the world. He said in a letter that a simple scavenger, Dolittle, is now the most original moralist in England. The American died, and before his death he bequeathed a share in his trust to this scavenger, on the condition that he would give up to 6 lectures a year in his League of Moral Reforms. Dolittle laments that he even has to marry the one with whom he has lived for several years without registering the relationship, since now he must look like a respectable bourgeois. According to Mrs. Higgins, the father will finally be able to take care of his daughter properly. However, Higgins does not want to hear about returning Eliza to Doolittle.

Return of Eliza

This play is an allusion (ironic) to the ancient myth “Pygmalion and Galatea”. A summary of further events is as follows. Mrs. Higgins reports that she knows where the girl is. She agrees to return on the condition that Higgins asks her for forgiveness. He does not agree to do this in any way. Eliza appears. The girl expresses gratitude to Pickering for treating her like a noble lady. After all, it was he who helped Eliza change, who had to live in the house of the ill-mannered, slovenly and rude Higgins. The professor is amazed. The girl adds that if Higgins continues to put pressure on her, she will go to Higgins’ colleague, Professor Nepean, and will be his assistant. Eliza threatens to inform Nepean about all of Higgins' discoveries. The professor finds that her behavior is now even more worthy and better than when the girl brought him shoes and looked after his things. Higgins is confident that they can now live together as “three friendly old bachelors.”

Let us describe the final events of the work "Pygmalion". The summary of the play was presented by going to his father's wedding. She, apparently, will still live in Higgins’s house, since she has managed to become attached to him, and he to her. And everything will continue as before for them.

This is how the work of interest to us ends, created by Bernard Shaw ("Pygmalion"). The summary gives an idea of ​​the main events of this world famous play. It consists of five acts. Bernard Shaw created Pygmalion in 1913. You can also find out a brief summary of it by watching one of the many productions. There is also a musical based on it (“My Fair Lady”).

The play was based on a story whose main characters are Pygmalion and Galatea (myth). The summary of this story, however, has been significantly altered. In his Galatea, Professor Higgins does not see a person. He doesn't care what happens to her after the girl turns into a "duchess". However, Eliza, who initially showed sympathy for her creator, knows her worth. In Kuhn's book "Legends and Myths of Ancient Greece" you can read the story of "Pygmalion and Galatea". The myth, a brief summary of which was taken as the basis for the play we are interested in, will help to better understand the work of B. Shaw.

Pygmalion is a play by Bernard Shaw. The author called it “a novel in five acts.” There are several options for translating the Pygmalion genre into Russian - for example, “a fantasy novel in five acts,” or “a sentimental novel in five acts.” Like most of Shaw's dramatic works, which invariably brought theater closer to journalism, Pygmalion has a short preface entitled “The Professor of Phonetics” and an extensive afterword telling about the further fate of the main character, the London street flower girl Eliza Doolittle. The play was written in 1912-1913, first staged on October 16, 1913 in Vienna. The English premiere took place at His Majesty's Theater in London on April 11, 1914 and ran for 118 performances. Shaw himself acted as a director; the role of Eliza Doolittle was written by him specifically for Stella Patrick Campbell; professor of phonetics Higgins was played by Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Bernard Shaw, working on the play “Pygmalion,” was guided by the ancient myth about the sculptor Pygmalion, who sculpted the statue of Galatea. Shocked by the beauty of his own creation, the artist begs Aphrodite to revive the marble figure. Galatea gains a soul, becomes a beautiful woman, the happy wife of Pygmalion. However, Shaw is very far from obediently repeating the images and situations of ancient myth; on the contrary, they are paradoxically transformed in his play. Galatea-Eliza, according to the plan of the 20th century playwright, will never be the wife of Pygmalion-Higgins. A happy ending is impossible. During the first production, Shaw categorically forbade the actors to portray Eliza's mutual love And Higins. He was interested in something completely different - the tragic impossibility for an educated, talented, spiritually rich woman, deprived of capital, to decently arrange her life in a capitalist society. It did not cost Eliza-Cinderella anything to perfectly master the modern English language, manners and behavior of society ladies in order to pass for a duchess or princess at any reception. But her future fate remains unpredictable. Bernard Shaw reworked the ending of Pygmalion several times: at first, Eliza decisively left Higgins, never to return to him; Then, in an afterword, Shaw suggested that she could marry society slacker Freddie Aysford-Heale and, with the financial support of Higgins and his friend Pickering, open a flower shop. Finally, a sketch of another ending arose: Eliza again settled in the Higgins house, but not as a wife or lover, but solely on a friendly, business basis.

The ideological foundations of the play “Pygmalion” are deeply humane. Shaw believes in the inexhaustible supply of creative power that lies within the people of the people. Poverty can disfigure a person’s appearance and destroy his individuality. But under favorable circumstances, all the best quickly awakens. Thus, Eliza’s father, the scavenger Alfred Doolittle, grotesquely written by Shaw, having suddenly become rich, gives lectures to an elegant audience with the brilliance and manners of a first-class speaker.

During the period of writing Pygmalion, Shaw was especially interested in phonetics. He believed that ideally correct English speech, free from Cockney vulgarisms and the pretentious phraseology of aristocratic salons, could change a person’s thinking, strengthen his will, and develop a correct understanding of reality. Subsequently, in his will, he donated a large sum of money for the compilation of a new English alphabet, helping to eliminate the line between writing and pronouncing words.

Constantly experimenting with the characterization of the genre features of his plays, coming up with the most unexpected definitions, B. Shaw in most cases remained what he was primarily by vocation - a comedian. And Pygmalion is one of his best comedies. Here the dialogues of the characters are replete with aphorisms, sharp comedic episodes replace each other, and the relationships between the characters are paradoxical. The play “Pygmalion” with amazing ease underwent the most unexpected metamorphoses, turning into works of other types of art. Its stage history is extremely rich and varied.

“Pygmalion” has been played in Russia since 1915. Among the first directors is V.E. Meyerhold. The best performers of the role of Eliza in Russia were D.V. Zerkalova (Moscow Maly Theater) and A.B. Freundlikh (Leningrad Lensovet Theater).

The first film adaptation of Pygmalion was made in England in 1938 (directed by Gabriel Pascal; Wendy Hiller as Eliza and Leslie Howard as Higgins). In 1956, Shaw's dramatic work became the basis for the musical My Fair Lady (music by Frederick Lowe, libretto by Alan Jay Lerner). This musical, which won the stage of theaters all over the world, was in turn filmed and entered into competition with Shaw's comedy. The Russian ballet returned to the original source of Shaw's play in the television performance "Galatea" (E.S. Maksimova - Eliza Doolittle).

Letters from Shaw and Stella Patrick Campbell, published after their deaths, prompted the American actor and playwright Jerome Kielty to compose the play “Lovely Liar”, a significant part of which was devoted to the preparation of “Pygmalion”, the complex creative and human relationship that developed between Shaw and Stella Patrick Campbell, eccentric, capricious, insanely afraid at the age of 49 to play a young street flower girl, but in the end she coped with the role perfectly, accurately and subtly guessing the playwright’s intention. After the production of Kilty’s play, a new “marathon” of the world’s strongest actresses began: now they played not just Eliza Doolittle, but Stella Patrick Campbell, who comprehends the essence of Shaw’s heroine. These were the Frenchwoman Maria Cazares, the American Catherine Cornell, the German Elisabeth Bergner, and the Russian actresses Angelina Stepanova and Lyubov Orlova. Stella Patrick Campbell's performance as Eliza was an inspiration to all actresses as well as the actors who play Bernard Shaw. In one of his letters, he called the creative relationship that arose in the process of creating Pygmalion between him and Stella Patrick Campbell “magical.” The real “magic” was the new life of “Pygmalion” in “Dear Liar.”

Written on the eve of the First World War, Shaw's famous comedy had a significant impact on the entire European artistic culture of the 20th century. It is noteworthy that each new work created on the basis of Shaw's play, no matter what type of art it belonged to, was independent in nature and had new aesthetic features. And at the same time, there is a strong, organic connection between all of them. The life of “Pygmalion” in time is unique and inimitable in its own way.

Bernard Show

Pygmalion

Novel in five acts

ACT ONE

Covent Garden. Summer evening. It's raining like buckets. From all sides the desperate roar of car sirens. Passers-by run to the market and to the Church of St. Paul, under whose portico several people had already taken refuge, including an elderly lady and her daughter, both in evening dresses. Everyone peers with annoyance into the streams of rain, and only one person, standing with his back to the others, seems to be completely absorbed in some notes that he is making in a notebook. The clock strikes a quarter past eleven.

Daughter (standing between the two middle columns of the portico, closer to the left). I can’t take it anymore, I’m completely chilled. Where did it go?

Freddie? Half an hour has passed, and he’s still not there.

Mother (to the right of her daughter). Well, not half an hour. But still, it’s time for him to get a taxi.

Passerby (to the right of the elderly lady). Don’t get your hopes up, lady: now everyone is coming from the theaters; He won’t be able to get a taxi before half past twelve. Mother. But we need a taxi. We can't stand here until half past eleven. This is simply outrageous.

Passerby. What do I have to do with it?

Daughter. If Freddie had any sense, he would have taken a taxi from the theater.

Mother. What is his fault, poor boy?

Daughter. Others get it. Why can't he?

Freddie flies in from Southampton Street and stands between them, closing his umbrella, which is dripping with water. This is a young man of about twenty; he is in a tailcoat, his trousers are completely wet at the bottom.

Daughter. Still haven't gotten a taxi?

Freddie. Nowhere, even if you die.

Mother. Oh, Freddie, really, really not at all? You probably didn't search well.

Daughter. Ugliness. Won't you tell us to go get a taxi ourselves?

Freddie. I'm telling you, there isn't one anywhere. The rain came so unexpectedly, everyone was taken by surprise, and everyone rushed to the taxi. I walked all the way to Charing Cross, and then in the other direction, almost to Ledgate Circus, and did not meet a single one.

Mother. Have you been to Trafalgar Square?

Freddie. There isn't one in Trafalgar Square either.

Daughter. Were you there?

Freddie. I was at Charingcross Station. Why did you want me to march to Hammersmith in the rain?

Daughter. You haven't been anywhere!

Mother. It's true, Freddie, you're somehow very helpless. Go again and don't come back without a taxi.

Freddie. I'll just get soaked to the skin in vain.

Daughter. What should we do? Do you think we should stand here all night, in the wind, almost naked? This is disgusting, this is selfishness, this is...

Freddie. Well, okay, okay, I'm going. (He opens his umbrella and rushes towards the Strand, but on the way he runs into a street flower girl, hurrying to take cover from the rain, and knocks the basket of flowers out of her hands.)

At the same second, lightning flashes, and a deafening clap of thunder seems to accompany this incident.

Flower girl. Where are you going, Freddie? Take your eyes in your hands!

Freddie. Sorry. (Runs away.)

Flower girl (picks flowers and puts them in a basket). And also educated! He trampled all the violets into the mud. (He sits down on the plinth of the column to the right of the elderly lady and begins to shake off and straighten the flowers.)

She can't be called attractive in any way. She is eighteen to twenty years old, no more. She is wearing a black straw hat, badly damaged in its lifetime from London dust and soot and hardly familiar with a brush. Her hair is some kind of mouse color, not found in nature: water and soap are clearly needed here. A tan black coat, narrow at the waist, barely reaching the knees; from under it a brown skirt and a canvas apron are visible. The boots, apparently, have also seen better days. Without a doubt, she is clean in her own way, but next to the ladies she definitely seems like a mess. Her facial features are not bad, but the condition of her skin leaves much to be desired; In addition, it is noticeable that she needs the services of a dentist.

Mother. Excuse me, how do you know that my son's name is Freddy?

Flower girl. Oh, so this is your son? There is nothing to say, you raised him well... Is this really the point? He scattered all the poor girl's flowers and ran away like a darling! Now pay, mom!

Daughter. Mom, I hope you won't do anything like that. Still missing!

Mother. Wait, Clara, don't interfere. Do you have change?

Daughter. No. I only have sixpence.

Flower girl (hopefully). Don't worry, I have some change.

Mother (daughter). Give it to me.

The daughter reluctantly parts with the coin.

So. (To the girl.) Here are the flowers for you, my dear.

Flower girl. God bless you, lady.

Daughter. Take her change. These bouquets cost no more than a penny.

Mother. Clara, they don't ask you. (To the girl.) No change needed.

Flower girl. God bless you.

Mother. Now tell me, how do you know this young man’s name?

Flower girl. I don't even know.

Mother. I heard you call him by name. Don't try to fool me.

Flower girl. I really need to deceive you. I just said so. Well, Freddie, Charlie - you have to call a person something if you want to be polite. (Sits down next to his basket.)

Daughter. Wasted sixpence! Really, Mom, you could have spared Freddie from this. (Disgustingly retreats behind the column.)

An elderly gentleman - a pleasant old army man type - runs up the steps and closes his umbrella, from which water is flowing. His pants, just like Freddie's, are completely wet at the bottom. He is wearing a tailcoat and a light summer coat. She takes the empty seat at the left column, from which her daughter has just left.

Gentleman. Oof!

Mother (to the gentleman). Please tell me, sir, is there still no light in sight?

Gentleman. Unfortunately no. The rain just started pouring down even harder. (He approaches the place where the flower girl is sitting, puts his foot on the plinth and, bending down, rolls up his wet trouser leg.)

Mother. Oh my god! (He sighs pitifully and goes to his daughter.)

Flower Girl (hastens to take advantage of the elderly gentleman's proximity in order to establish friendly relations with him). Since it poured more heavily, it means it will pass soon. Don’t be upset, captain, better buy a flower from a poor girl.

Gentleman. I'm sorry, but I don't have any change.

Flower girl. And I'll change it for you, captain.

Gentleman. Sovereign? I don't have any others.