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Bedlam's Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Should we still be producing George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion in 2018?

Well, if we went by Bedlam's current production at the Sheen Center, nah.

The company, whose Hamlet is actually my favorite production of the play I've seen, typically does interesting, often subversive, work. It may not always be successful but they always seem to have a vision. However, they simply do not make a case for Pygmalion with their straight-forward production.

I'm not going to mince words; Pygmalion is incredibly sexist. Uncomfortably so. It is not subversive in the least. There's no satire. Sure, you can argue it's a product of its time but it can stay in its time. I think it has endured because of the Lerner and Lowe musical version, My Fair Lady. Sure, Shaw is very esteemed (even if he did hate Shakespeare) and his work has endured on its own but I'm not so sure we need to see more productions of Pygmalion. Higgins' misogyny is reprehensible, and as a woman in 2018, it's hard to sit through.

So, as I mentioned in my post about The Winter's Tale, we need a reason to do Pygmalion, or else it feels incredibly inessential. Bedlam's production, performed in the black box space of the Sheen Center, is well-acted all around but it is such a straight-forward that it feels like a college production.

Now, it's unfair to say director Eric Tucker (who also plays Higgins) didn't have a vision. Eliza is played, quite well might I add, by Indian actress Vaishnavi Sharma. This makes this Pygmalion all about the immigrant experience, set in a time and place where colonialism and racism were rampant. Higgins is trying to strip Eliza of her race, her culture. It is inherently wrong. Don't get me wrong, I believe Higgins, especially as portrayed by Higgins, would to this to Eliza. But this device falls away after the opening scenes, and it is not explored deep enough. I suppose to do so, you'd have to completely deconstruct the play. It's a noble attempt to say something but it's not followed through.

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