At a moment in our culture when the very idea of wit is all but smirkingly dismissed, it’s an unalloyed joy to welcome a revived comedy that delights in wit, revels in the witty exchange, and basks in the recognition that wit is an enhancing human element.
It’s in this frame of mind that David Staller—founder of the Gingold Theatrical Group, devoted to the works of George Bernard Shaw—has turned to the playwright’s Pygmalion, producing and directing it with witty dexterity.
His is a two-act demonstration of Shaw’s exuberant belief that “Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself.” When you think about it, Shaw—not only in Pygmalion but in most if not all his plays—emphasizes maturity as life’s true revelation.
Not that it’s always blaringly obvious. As Pygmalion begins, masterful linguist Henry Higgins overhears flower girl Eliza Dolittle murdering, as he regards it, the English language. He tells new friend and fellow linguist Colonel Pickering that in six months he could easily transform the pathetic creature into a woman able to convince the world she’s a duchess.
But before carrying on about the plot, explanation is needed concerning an imaginative transformation for the production that Shaw flame-keeper Staller introduces. He’s mindful that the play’s title refers to the Greek myth in which sculptor Pygmalion creates a marble woman so beautiful he prays for her to come to life. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, she does but with personal aims that her bedazzled maker hadn’t considered.
So Staller has decided to do something about the mythic origin, something radical. At the get-go he brings on four Greek gods (Lizan Mitchell, Carson Elrod, Teresa Avia Lim, Matt Wolpe) to tell the Henry-Eliza tale. (Troupers Elrod, Mitchell, Lim, and Wolpe also take on all the other Pygmalion roles.)
Importantly, the author of the gods’ pithy chats is not Staller but Shaw. They’re taken from notes GBS gave to Wendy Hiller on the set of the 1938 film in which she played Eliza. Much more recently, she passed them on to the enterprising Staller.
Now all the action buoyantly unfolds on Lindsay Genevieve Fuori’s set, conjuring a Greek temple façade but cleverly working as the portico of Covent Garden’s St. Paul’s, where Higgins (Mark Evans), Eliza (Synnøve Karlson), and Pickering (Elrod again) meet in a downpour.
Complementing the overall high visual spirits is the appropriation of Al Hirshfeld’s familiar caricature of Shaw as puppeteer manipulating life. (Hirshfeld, as Staller reports in a note, “was a lifelong pal of mine.”)
Aside from the gods’ frequent appearances, Shaw’s play is fully honored, the dialogue the same OK’d by him for Gertrude Lawrence’s 1945 Broadway production. And Shaw is honored indeed: paying tribute to the brilliant polymath is Staller’s life’s work. The wit throughout the play, wit born of everyone’s intelligence, is fully realized.
This includes Eliza’s father, Alfred Dolittle, who among the dramatis personae may be the most eye-and-ear-popping. Through him, a happily unaware moralist, Shaw mocks the era’s hypocritical morality as viewed from his deliberate distance. W
Wolpe’s performance—he’s also the gawping Freddy Eynsford Hill—as a man who disappointingly discovers he’s become a model of morality may never have been bettered.
Staller sees to it that the entire cast rises to this level. Evans’ Higgins, always a social misfit, initially masks his human shortcomings by the command he has over his specialized field. Ever-so-slowly, however, he exposes his mental development as arrested at about age 13. Nice work from him.
Karsen as the smart, independent Eliza — the person she never thought she would or could be — is beautifully captured in Shaw’s evolving battle of the sexes. Watch the sidelong glances this emerging Eliza throws Higgins in their cunningly written penultimate confrontation scene.
Mitchell is effective as both household servant Mrs. Pearce and elegantly upper-class Mrs. Higgins. The always right-on-pitch Elrod’s Pickering is quietly effective throughout, as is Lim, who also fluidly represents upstairs-downstairs types.
Watched with sublime pleasure in 2025, it’s possible some fleeting Pygmalion moments could pop out as particularly meaningful today, small things that might have only passed by entertainingly in previous decades.
Take Higgins admonishing Eliza with, “Think what you’re dealing with … the majesty and grandeur of the English language. It’s the most valuable possession we have.” With respect for the English language shrinking noticeably nowadays, Higgins’ urgent sentiment seems increasingly uncommon as well as triggering.
When Alred Dolittle says, “I enjoy politics or religion same as all the other amusements,” it’s an off-hand remark that blithely demotes two topics currently carrying vastly conflicting societal weight.
What about, it must be addressed, the play Pygmalion and the musical My Fair Lady? Granted, the Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe classic enhances the play but hardly supersedes it. Except for one sequence. Lovers of the musical will be surprised at the interlude where Higgins teaches Eliza correct (well, upper-class) speech. Lerner and Loewe spend marvelous time with the difficult lessons, ending with “The Rain in Spain,” a showstopper if there ever was one. Shaw dispatches the intense occasion in only a few minutes.
Never mind. David Staller’s amusingly tinkered with Pygmalion is as fair as can be. It’s a good guess Shaw would have benevolently smiled on it.
Pygmalion opened November 2, 2025, at Theatre Row and runs through November 22. Tickets and information: gingoldgroup.org
