Pygmalion

New Harmony Theatre and the University of Southern Indiana Theatre co-presented a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion this weekend. Guest actors Bryan Vickery and Ronald Keaton were absolutely delightful, Ashtyn Cornett played an incorrigible Eliza Doolittle, and Otto Mullins once again really stood out to me in the role of Eliza’s father, Alfred.

Much has been made of whether Professor Higgins and Eliza fall in love by the end of the play or film. Elliot Wasserman (Producing Artistic Director) doesn’t think that’s Shaw’s point, writing, “…Pygmalion is no myth in the classic sense, but a subtle analysis of how to approach the world as it is, how to play the game. It is everyone else who will love Eliza Doolittle. And Higgins, the sculptor, well, he loves that.”

I hesitate to disagree with Wasserman, but I do think that Professor Higgins and Eliza grow to have an affection for one another by the end of the play. The question that glared at me during this performance was, is love truly possible between these two characters? Eliza’s inability to leave behind a commercial understanding of human relationships and Professor Higgins’ cynicism about the lived experience of refined society seem to run hopelessly parallel to one another, never really meeting in a meaningful way.

I struggled with the thought for most of the drive home- why did Professor Higgins take Eliza on as a student in the first place? He makes it very clear to the audience that what she’s prepared to pay him for lessons is a pittance, so I was left with a few other possibilities: 1) she’s a challenge whose transformation will prove his own talent, 2) he thinks so little of the refined society that he sees a “doll” with no actual substance being accepted into that society as the ultimate in-joke, or 3) Professor Higgins believes he sees in Eliza a woman who is seeking to better herself (not necessarily her circumstances)- that she wants to speak and behave properly out of some desire for personal excellence.

I think in this last point he deceives himself entirely; Eliza’s world is necessarily driven by hard economics. To be a proper lady in a flower shop would give her a sense of worth and self-determination that hawking flowers on the street never could. It’s very much a precursor to the line from A Knight’s Tale of “a man can change his stars”. She’s shrewd, she’s done the cost benefit analysis, and she’s bewitched by the gold coins Professor Higgins nonchalantly flipped into her basket. For Professor Higgins the floating glamorous world of the rich and refined is a pretty sham, but at least the way they speak doesn’t offend the Lord’s ears. His opinion of refined women (famously, in the film) is so poor that he’s happy to call himself a confirmed bachelor.

Personally, this is where the play and the film both reach the most interesting moments- the triumph of showing Eliza off is over, and suddenly the main characters must come to grips with what the enterprise actually meant. Professor Higgins finds Eliza’s insistence on transactional terminology base and offensive, such as being concerned as to whether her clothes belong to her, or asking him to keep the jewels safe so she won’t be considered a thief. Eliza is offended by the idea that Professor Higgins and Col. Pickering have “got one over” on high society- is being a proper lady something to be desired for its own sake or isn’t it?

Ultimately I’ve come to accept that this is a doomed relationship, or at least can only be a sort of FWB situation (in the Edwardian sense of course). Eliza’s goal all along has been to simply smooth the edges off a rough upbringing, but her fire and her personality remain so entertainingly her own (and the audience loves her for it). Professor Higgins finally realizes that transforming the way a person speaks, or dresses, or behaves, is only window-dressing. Eliza isn’t pursuing refinement because she acknowledges its superiority over her original state. He’s left at the end of the play as the only character who’s truly “playing the game”, simply because he’s the only one who recognizes that society is playing one at all.