George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (written 1912; premiered in
Vienna in 1913; and first seen in London in 1914) has always been one of the
great writer’s audience favorites. Revivals may have dropped off somewhat in
the years following the enormous success of Lerner and Loewe’s 1956 musical
comedy version, My Fair Lady, one of
the greatest of its genre, and currently in revival at Lincoln Center. For
those familiar with My Fair Lady,
either on stage or screen, its songs are so indelible it’s impossible not to
think about them while watching even a good production of the original play.
Pygmalion’s latest revival is in the hands of Off Broadway’s
Bedlam, a company that, under Eric Tucker’s direction, has earned a growing reputation
for Tucker’s cleverly innovative approaches to mostly British classical
material. Its last production prior to Pygmalion
was Peter Pan, whose original
appeared on the London stage only a decade before Shaw’s comedy. 
In case you’re worrying that this
revival will take unwarranted liberties with a beloved text, or present it in
so radical a way that its charms will be diminished, rest assured that the play’s
heart and soul remain; however, also be aware that Bedlam continues to employ modern
theatrical mannerisms that might not be to everyone’s taste.
Pygmalion, for those unfamiliar with its plot, is a kind of mashup
of themes from Cinderella, Taming of the Shrew, Frankenstein, and the classical myth of the sculptor Pygmalion whose statue of Galatea
is so beautiful it comes to life. Henry Higgins (Tucker), a self-satisfied
professor of phonetics, bets his friend, Col. Pickering (Nigel Gore), visiting
from India, that, within half a year, he can educate Eliza Doolittle (Vaishnavi
Sharma), a shabby guttersnipe of a Cockney flower girl, to the point where she can fool
her social superiors into believing she’s a beautiful duchess.
In the background of this scheme
are various lively characters, principally Higgins’s no-nonsense housemaid,
Mrs. Pearce (Annabel Capper); Eliza’s politically voluble father, Alfred
Doolittle (Rajesh Bose), a dustman who rails against middle-class morality,
calls himself “the undeserving poor,” and, to his dismay, eventually strikes it
rich; Higgins’s mother, Mrs. Higgins (Edmund Lewis), a grande dame; and the
Eynsford-Hills: Mrs. Eynsford-Hill (Gore), her daughter, Clara (Annabel Capper),
and her son, Freddy (Lewis).
The latter is the bland young man
Shaw suggested would marry Liza rather than Higgins, whose failure to become
Liza’s husband always has been perhaps the play’s most controversial element. It
even prompted a revised, if ambiguous, ending in the movie version, and a similarly vague one in the film of My Fair Lady, where, unlike the stage version, the hint of a future between the flower girl and phonetics professor lingers.
Pygmalion has an odd structure—the scene where Eliza passes herself
off successfully at an ambassador’s party—happens offstage midway through, and
the final scenes of the play sometimes seem more like a debate than a drama, as
the domineering Higgins struggles to maintain control over the now self-aware
Eliza, who fights for her independence from him. 
But it does reach a dramatic
climax toward the end and we see clearly in Bedlam’s production that, not only
will Eliza never marry her tyrannical mentor, her statue has come to life, she’s
found her liberty, and he, having felt things he’s been repressing all along, is
at a complete loss.
Now for the production: Pygmalion is typically staged in Edwardian
costumes (the 1938 movie, though, used 1938 clothing) with elaborate sets to
suggest exteriors, like the opening in Covent Garden during a rainstorm, or well-to-do
interiors, like Higgins’s book-lined study. Bedlam’s aesthetic, though, is to spend
a minimum on scenic and costume elements, stripping them to their most
essential elements.
The Sheen Center’s Black Box has
been arranged to create an audience waiting area outside the auditorium, one
wall covered with period advertisements. The spectators are forced to mill
around there in uncomfortably close quarters until the actors, in semblances of
period wear, including a man or two in women’s hats, pop up among them. It appears we’re in for an evening of immersive theatre. As they move among us, they speak the opening
lines, creating the impression we’re all part of the Covent Garden crowd in
which Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza first appear.
Then the fog lifts and, apart from
a sprinkling of fourth wall-breaking dialogue and some acting in the aisles,
the kind of immersion promised in the prologue is abandoned as we’re ushered to
our seats in the theatre proper. This is a miniature, tiered, amphitheater-like structure
erected around a three-quarters round set. Its few basic furnishings essentially
will remain stationary throughout. The room’s actual staircase, along one wall,
will be part of some scenes, or hidden by a striped traveler curtain when the
action moves elsewhere. And the actors will be inches from your face.
Les Dickert’s lighting keeps the
audience lit as well as the stage through all but a few scenes. The costumes,
by Charlotte Palmer-Lane, while definitely Edwardian in feeling, including
floor-length dresses for the women (one of which has a sari influence because
of the casting), have a deliberately thrift-shop look. This is not a Cecil
Beaton show but it gets the job done.
There are a mere six actors in the
production. As per other Bedlam productions, several actors are required to
play two or three roles. Two men, Gore and Lewis, also play women, doing so by
simply changing their hats. One scene is choreographed so that, as they sit on
chairs, they keep changing their hats so we’ll know who’s talking at any time.
No wigs are worn; thus, Lewis, a
stocky actor resembling a young Don Rickles, performs Mrs. Higgins in a buzz
cut and orange gown, putting on a gray derby and glasses to become
Freddy. Any regular theatregoer has seen this kind of thing many times before.
It’s the kind of too-cute device that draws attention to itself and away from
the play, regardless of how well-executed it is. Another familiar, but
unnecessary, technique is having the actors sometimes break the fourth wall to speak
directly to an audience member, as if seeking approval for their comments. 
The script has been pared down to
a nonstop, fast-paced two hours, and is played for the most part in a
straightforward, realistic way such as you might expect from any conventional
interpretation. For all the show’s vivacity, however, it does occasionally lag.
Perhaps the most eccentric choice
is to have Eliza speak with a kind of crude Indian accent, indecipherable at first. Is it Hindi? Obviously intended to underpin considerations of
racial oppression, which happen not to be Shaw’s concern, it does suggest how difficult
Higgins’s task is. Indian-born actress Sharma does it very well, just as she does
with the character’s refined, upper-class diction later on. She gets a laugh when Eliza’s famous
lapse arrives: while conversing in snooty tones with Mrs. Higgins and
others, she rattles the teacups with a full-out Cockney “Not bloody likely,” Then again, it's an illogical crack from someone whose accent has been changed from Cockney to South Asian.
Both Sharma and the Indian-American actor, Bose, who plays her father, are showstealers. She
may not physically conform to traditional ideas of Eliza but, without the considerable
feeling and intellectual penetration she provides, this production would be in
trouble. Sharma’s fighting feminism is just right for our times. 
Bose’s Doolittle, despite using a Cockney dialect instead of his daughter’s Indian one, is a hurricane of
speechifying force, helping highlight Shaw’s class-related concerns. Tucker,
not the most charismatic of leading men, makes Higgins a rather nasty piece of egotism,
so it’s easy to accept Eliza’s rejection of him. Oddly, his snotty phonetician
has the least authentic accent in the company. Capper quite sharply defines the
rigid, but sympathetic Mrs. Pearce, and Lewis’s drag performance as Higgins’s
mother is surprisingly restrained. Gore’s Pickering starts off well enough; if
there were woodwork, though, I’d say he fades into it.
There are enough joys in Bedlam's Pygmalion to make it worth a visit to Bleecker Street, especially if you'd like to compare it to My Fair Lady. Will you fail to hear the music to "I've Grown Accustomedodd to Her Face" when Higgins tells Eliza, "I've grown accustomed to your voice and appearance"? Not bloody likely.
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Sheen Center for Thought and Culture
18 Bleecker St., NYC
Through April 22