Our English

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 218, 3 December 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

Our English

Shaw & “Pygmalion” AS PROVOKING AS EVER In his preface to “Pygmalion,” Bernard Shaw says: As will be seen later, “Pygmalion” needs. not a preface, but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place. The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. What the reformer of England needs to day is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made such a one ‘ ie hero of a popular play . . .” It will be noticed that the play ends . >ruptly, leaving in doubt the destiny of the hero and heroine Shaw tolls

i- in his sequel: And now. whoir lid Eliza man." Fo r if Higgint was a predestinat >ld bachelor, sh .vas most certainly lot a predestinate >ld maid. We!, hat can be told very shortly tc those who have not guessed it from the indications she has herself given them. . . .1

Will she look forwu.u to a lifetiriK <>i * tching Higgins’s slippers or to a lifetime of Freddy fetching hers? Ther ecan be no doubt about the answer. Unless Freddy is biologically repulsive to her, and Higgins is biologically attractive to a degree that overwhelms all her other instincts, she will, if she marries either of them, marry Freddy. And that is just what Eliza did. . . . She is immensely interested in Higgins. She has even secret mischievous moments in which she wishes she could get him alone, on a desert island, away from all ties and with nobody else in the world to consider, and just drag him oft' his pedestal and see him making love like any common man. We all have private imaginations of that sort. But when it comes to business, to the life that she really leads as distinguished from the life of dreams and fancies, she likes Freddy, and she likes the Colonel; and she does not like Higgins and Mr. Doolittle. The season of “Pygmalion,” by the Little Theatre Society, opens on December 8, and promises to be a record. Mr. Kenneth Brampton, the producer, is busy with final rehearsals.