It seems that one of Shaw's primary purposes in writing Pygmalion, the story of a phonetics professor who, on a bet, transforms a guttersnipe of a flower-girl into a lady, was to educate.
In his foreword, he writes, "It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that great art can never be anything else."
Fortunately, the Ottawa Little Theatre's production of Pygmalion, which opened Monday, Jan. 8, has not taken Shaw's remarks too closely to heart, realizing, as I'm sure Shaw did himself, that art must entertain before it can deign to educate. In fact, the troupe's two-act, six-scene interpretation of Shaw's best-known piece is rife with the humour and comic irony that made the play such a natural adaptation to film (in George Cukor's 1964 musical, My Fair Lady).
The nearly seamless 2 1/2-hour production features some outstanding performances, most notably Joyce Landry's portrayal of Eliza Doolittle, the wide-eyed and naive waif who serves as Professor Higgins's experimental rabbit. Her energy, from start to finish, is infectious, and her all-too-infrequent comedic displays, such as her ill-fated inaugural foray into a formal social occasion, are extremely entertaining.
Beside Eliza's frailty and uncertainty about her future, Higgins is a wholly unlikable mentor, and actor Guy Williams can be commended for not once throughout the evening earning our sympathies.
Higgins' housemate and partner in the experiment is Colonel Pickering, an expert in Indian dialects, whose role, played well enough by Barry Caiger, is simply too bound by the strictures of the polite-but-stuffy sidekick that will never allow the character to be anything more than a Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes.
If Eliza's humorous scenes are too rare, though, that dearth is more than made up for by the supporting cast, most of whom serve as light foils to Williams' performance as the insensitive, villainous and bullying professor. Mrs. Pearce, played by Pat Marshall, is wonderful as Higgins' housekeeper who, unbeknownst to the professor, gives Eliza a sympathetic ear.
Mary Gore, as Higgins' proper and sensible mother, is also excellent, her dry wryness surfacing just enough to put the thumbs to her boorish son. And Bill Luxton's characterization of Eliza's navvy father, the overly intelligent, ever pub-bound Alfred Doolittle, whose Welsh oratorical charms could squeeze a farthing out of a stone, steals his scenes.
Special mention should also go to Jennifer Donnelly's set designs. The dioramas of Higgins' and his mother's parlours are like life-sized dollhouses, and contain the action perfectly.