A great and surprising play! I left the theatre exhilarated and astonished but also kinda angry at now being able to see what Hollywood had turned it into in the movie My Fair Lady, eviscerating its radical content with regard to class and feminism.

Muy amena y divertida lectura, el lenguaje que utiliza Elisa la florista es de lo más auténtico y gracioso y me encantó.

Eliza es orgullosa y altanera, pero a la vez es adorable, es imposible no empatizar con ella, imposible no quererla, es encantadora.

Vaya personajes más singulares y pintorescos todos, pero me quedo con estos dos Higgins (El de la notas ) y Elisa ( La florista), que son los grandes protagonistas de esa obra de teatro.

Después de una noche de malos entendidos, Elisa se presenta en la casa de el de las notas para que la enseñe hablar y utilizar el vocabulario correctamente.

Una fantasía de divertidas y surrealistas anécdotas y situaciones van pasando a lo largo de toda la narración, en la cual no he parado de asombrarme y de reírme, os llevara menos de dos horas leerla y os aseguro que aburriros desde luego que no os vais a aburrir.

Nada sobra y nada falta, relatada perfectamente, con un vocabulario a la antigua usanza.

No olvidar que esta obra de teatro se escribió en 1912.

Posdata: Pero nunca olvidéis que la historia que cuenta un libro no siempre es igual.


Extractos del libro:

¡Dichoso el que tiene una profesión que coincide con su afición!

En todo lo que se hace verdaderamente bien, hay algo de profesional.

Hay pocos que saben ser lo que son.

Reading the play out loud made me laugh a lot!!! It is smartly funny!!!
It is a good piece for the one who is planning to change his or her life radically.

Great read. One you do not want to put down.

So, I’ll embark on a Shaw project, rereading most of his plays this year, I decided. This first, Pygmalion, is the one with which I am most familiar, having taught it and seen it--on the stage and as My Fair Lady--and I was the Technical Director of a high school production when I was a high school teacher. I really loved listening to an audio production yesterday, stopping to listen to parts of it I admired. It’s clever, funny, and provocative.

I was tempted to write a review such as Paul Bryant’s review of Oliver Twist to the effect that it sucks because there are no songs in it, but that would be tempting fate, since Paul’s review is one of the best and most popular on Goodreads. But I do like the much-lauded film version, though I think it works against Shaw’s afterword of the play where he makes it clear that Eliza and Professor Higgins would not have been a great romantic match, however much we can tell it is a romantic set-up--that sub-genre of enemies-become-lovers-- and are teased to hope they will get together in the end. Broadway demanded more romantic hopefulness than the play indicates, and Hollywood demanded it as My Fair Lady. But ‘enry is a confirmed bachelor, and a brute. And the Eliza is strong. Is Higgins a misogynist? His defense is this:

“The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”

So Higgins treated everyone the same: Badly.

And as to women in particular:

Pickering: Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?
Higgins [moodily]: Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?

The play is of course about a man who discovers a flower girl, and somewhat riffing off the Pygmalion myth, commits to helping her pass as a “lady” of high society. One of Shaw’s interests is language, and the politics of language, so Higgins and Pickering, as socio-linguists get to be mouthpieces for the playwright.

And then there are so so many great lines and characters, perhaps best being Liza’s father:

Higgins: Have you no morals, man?
Doolittle [unabashed]: Can’t afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.

You could do worse with a few hours than reading the original, with Shaw’s notes on the strong and independent woman that is Eliza, and then seeing My Fair Lady to analyze the differences.

দিতাম না, পাঁচ তারা আমি কখনোই দিতাম না, এই নাটক পড়ে পাঁচ তারা দেবো, এই সিদ্ধান্তে মন কখনোই সায় দিতো না, যদি না শেষে ঐ এরপর কী হইলো জুড়ে দেয়া না থাকত।
মাত্র পাঁচ দৃশ্যের নাটক (শ-য়ের নাটকে দৃশ্য দেখতেছি একটু কমই থাকে), প্রথম দুই দৃশ্যের পর মনে হচ্ছিলো, এই নাটক আর পড়া যাবে না, তিন নম্বর দৃশ্যে মনে হইলো, আচ্ছা, আগাক আরো কিছুদূর, পাঁচে এসে সব তছনছ করে দিলো, আর শেষের ঐ গদ্যটুকু, শয়ের, যারপরনাই লোভনীয়। যারা বলেন বা বলবেন, নাটক পড়ার চেয়ে দেখাতেই আরাম, সম্ভবত তাদের জবাব দিতেই শয়ের এত কারিকুরি, নাটকের মাঝে যেভাবে তিনি দৃশ্যের আর পটের বর্ণনা দিছেন, পড়ার মতন বটে।

শ অবশ্য এক ধরনের অন্যায় সুবিধাই পান, আমার হিসাব-মতে। তিনি লিখতেছেন এমন সব জিনিস নিয়ে, যেটার সাথে আমি একমত হইতে প্রকারান্তরে বাধ্য, তিনি লিখতেছেন সুন্দর, তিনি লিখতেছেন একেবারে ঝকঝকে, আমি তাঁরে নিয়ে ছোঁকছোঁকও যদি বা করি, শেষ পর্যন্ত তারে ত আর ফেলতে পারি না। সাহিত্য ঐ উনি যারে বলেন ডাইড্যাকটিক হওয়ার এই এক সমস্যা, এক হাত আগে থেকে জেতা হয়ে থাকে, এরপরও যদি কেউ তলস্তয়ের মত আমার অপ্রিয় হন, আমি তার দায়ভার নেবো না।
আগাগোড়া সুন্দর বলবো না, কিন্তু শেষে গিয়ে পুরা বাজিমাত করে দিলো। আর কী পরিষ্কার লেখা রে বাবা।

হাতের বইটা কাল কেনা, একটু পোকায় খাওয়া, খেয়াল করি নাই তখন। এই যা বিষম লাগতেছে।

سيدتي الجميلة من اجمل الافلام التي شاهدتها.
بجماليون نحاث اغريقي كان يكره النساء ويعتبرهن مخادعات لذا قرر العيش وحده وصنع منحوتة على شكل امراة خالية من العيوب . فاصبح عاشقا لمنحوتته وطلب من الالهة ان تنفخ الروح في التمثال لكي تتحول الى امراة حية. في الفيلم بجماليون هو الاستاذ هيجنز الذي حول بائعة ورود فقيرة الى سيدة ووقع في حبها.

Professor Henry Higgins tries to transform a poor Cockney flower girl,Eliza Doolittle,into a lady by improving her speech and manners.

By doing so,he creates a fresh dilemma for her.She is now not fit either for her orginal social class,or for a higher one.And in the process,Henry Higgins falls in love with his own creation.

It pokes fun at the English class system.On stage,Shaw's producers wanted a different ending.It's good fun,but not one I'd call a compelling read.

But there are some quotable quotes,some of which are given below :

What a jaunty tale!

I rather enjoyed this one, especially discovering the differences between the movie My Fair Lady and its predecessor, this play. Great characterization, fabulous plot, and plenty of wit… There’s lots to appreciate in this easy-breezy read.

Content: expletives, profanity, discussion of sex (though not shown)

Although I haven't watched "My Fair Lady," I've listened to some song or another to have a foggy idea of the plot, plus the name "Pygmalion" is a clue in itself, but I came to the play without expectations as to the story.

And it was quite good for a majority of the plotline's development, funny even, right up to the end, when Shaw managed to ruin it for me with his post-play What Happened Afterwards commentary in which he pontificates dogmatically on what the play is supposed to mean and on what happened to Eliza Doolittle, to Higgins, to Colonel Pickering, to the Eynsford Hills, etc., so expansively he's annoying and spoils it all. I'd have preferred it had Shaw left to the readers' imagination what else comes after the last scene and not reveal every character's fate. I wanted to know (and speculate) for myself who Eliza married, how Higgins and the Colonel lived like after, what Clara did for a living, who had a happy ending and who didn't, etc., and not be spoon-fed all this information in an authorial vanity note after the curtain came down like I'm too clueless to have guessed it all by myself. That was infuriating and took away much of the play's charm in my eyes.

Probably the favorite play read until now, which I have to admit are not many. A linguist makes a bet that he can turn a flower girl into a lady in 6 months. Both the girls and the linguist are strong characters and from there conflicts arise. By the end of the play they get attached to each other in a strange way. What I found special about the play was the afterword written by the author himself that explains in details how the life of the character will unfold.