Pygmalion at the Old Vic

[oxfordsimon]

BBC broadcast a 2 part radio version recently and that was just under 2 hours

So it can be done.

A fair amount of MFL is dealing with the too frequent scene changes!

[Being Alive]

I think this wil end up having an interval in at some point during previews.

Liked it, didn't love it.
Production has some interesting, fresh ideas - some of which I liked, some of which I didn't.
Bertie is Bertie and is doing what he does really well - to me his Higgins is 100% on the spectrum from the word go, whereas it's always a bit ambiguous in MFL, I didn't feel an ambiguity here.
Patsy is excellent - so warm and engaging. I love seeing her on stage, she's such a chameleon and really gets to the heart of the roles she plays.
I did wish that they were both doing My Fair Lady, as the script is SO similar (I forgot how similar) but it zipped along at pace and I had a nice time.
3 stars currently, probably 4 once they've ironed a few bits out.

[rumtom]

Sept 6, 2023 22:26:14 GMT oxfordsimon said:

BBC broadcast a 2 part radio version recently and that was just under 2 hours

So it can be done.

A fair amount of MFL is dealing with the too frequent scene changes!

I caught five minutes of it and intended to go back and listen. Is it worthwhile?

[rumtom]

Sept 6, 2023 22:06:22 GMT Rory said:

Sept 6, 2023 21:17:25 GMT rumtom said:

An enjoyable first night. 2 hours on the dot with no interval. Beautifully air conditioned thankfully. BC and PF both impressed - although Bertie reminded me of Richard Briers throughout, both in his speech and mannerisms (and probably dress sense too!).

I'll leave it to others to dissect, compare and contrast but it was an entertaining evening with a few genuinely funny moments, and even more moments of over acting. The acoustics weren't great, which wasn't great for a play where fast, clever and witty dialogue needed to be heard.

Overall, enjoyable, nothing groundbreaking, very warm applause at the curtain.

Was there a traditional set?

Yes. Retractable (front to rear) building facade with columns that was used for a few scenes. Otherwise a fairly minimal set.

I actually found it quite distracting when they attempted to change the set during dialogue - pushing tables and chairs off the stage ready to transform seamlessly into the next scene but it took my attention away from Bertie's speech on occasion - even though he is anything but dull!

[oxfordsimon]

Sept 7, 2023 6:22:33 GMT rumtom said:

Sept 6, 2023 22:26:14 GMT oxfordsimon said:

BBC broadcast a 2 part radio version recently and that was just under 2 hours

So it can be done.

A fair amount of MFL is dealing with the too frequent scene changes!

I caught five minutes of it and intended to go back and listen. Is it worthwhile?

I haven't finished it yet. But it is entertaining this far

[jm25]

I was there this evening and although I’m familiar with Pygmalion thanks to My Fair Lady, this was my first time seeing it on stage. I did like it, but if anything I found that the unavoidable comparisons to MFL worked against it. Without the gorgeous songs and swelling orchestra, the dialogue felt slightly flat, and compared to the lush backdrop of last year’s MFL at the Coliseum, the set design felt far too bare. I appreciate we’re right at the start of the run, but the main feeling I was left with was that this could have been a bit more than what it was. Patsy Ferran is wonderful, though. I could watch her all day!

I also really, really wish that they’d ended it about a minute or so before they actually did. Eliza delivering her final words to Higgins was a real knockout moment and it got a big round of applause from the audience. But that seemed to just fizzle out during the extra minute that followed. I don’t know if the final sequence is in the original script or is specific to this production, but it would be a far stronger ending if they just cut it entirely.

Not a bad evening at the theatre by any means, however. And I was very grateful for the air con!

[mrbarnaby]

Is it traditionally costumed? Or modern?

[jm25]

Sept 7, 2023 21:33:36 GMT mrbarnaby said:

Is it traditionally costumed? Or modern?

Eliza’s outfits get a slightly more modern silhouette as the play progresses but overall it was fairly traditional.

[mrbarnaby]

Sept 7, 2023 21:43:03 GMT jm25 said:

Sept 7, 2023 21:33:36 GMT mrbarnaby said:

Is it traditionally costumed? Or modern?

Eliza’s outfits get a slightly more modern silhouette as the play progresses but overall it was fairly traditional.

Thanks!

[Rory]

It sounds surprisingly trad for Richard Jones. Not necessarily a bad thing.

[Mark]

I enjoyed it. Patsy is wonderful of course and I enjoyed watching Bertie. Two hours no interval did seem a tad long for it if I’m honest, but it did feel pretty fast paced so that’s good.

[Jon]

Saw it tonight and have to say having seen My Fair Lady, it was an interesting experience seeing Pygmalion and working out the similarities and the differences.

Bertie Carvel is great as Higgins, I'd remember the comment by Being Alive about the character being on the Spectrum and actually you can see that in the way that Higgins interacts not only with Eliza but frankly everyone around him.

Patsy Ferrin is wonderful as Eliza but interestingly, she's not on stage that much compared to Bertie Carvel but whenever she is, she's dynamite and it's a great satisfaction to the audience in the final scene with Higgins.

[thistimetomorrow]

I have no real reasoning behind this, but this set/lighting/production/music gave me Kubrik's 'A Clockwork Orange' vibes and Bertie Carvel reminded me a lot of Willem Dafoe lol.

Anyway, hadn't realised quite how similar the musical was to the original play, with large sections of dialogue/lyrics being pretty much exactly the same. I did enjoy this a lot though.

[foxa]

This is an enjoyable evening largely because of the script, which is still funny, and the energy of the lead performances. I didn't entirely get the set - the perforated white boards used for the walls probably symbolised something, but just reminded me of cheap office dividers. The play was originally set pre-WW1, but the costumes were (I think) somewhat updated (mid-calf length dresses when not formal, trousers for women) With the evening clothes it's harder to say for sure.

Ferran and Carvel are both such resourceful actors so they are fun to watch. Ferran absolutely nails the tea party scene. As others have mentioned, Carvel takes an eccentric line on Higgins - tongue flicking, etc -and there was no discernible chemistry between him and Ferran which removed one interesting dynamic from the ending. But he has a way of throwing himself into the role which is entertaining and makes a certain sense, for example, in the exchanges with his mother.

Some of the supporting performances were also good - Michael Gould as Pickering is incredibly sympathetic and every reaction was just right - and Lizzy Connolly was funny in a smaller role.

It's played at a quick pace, so I didn't miss having an interval- it flew by. A few expected preview mishaps with dropped props- including a chocolate which Carvel then ate.

We certainly felt for £10 stalls tickets we more than got our money's worth!

[dr]

Saw this tonight, and was impressed. The production has real character, moving with a certain eccentricity and chaos that is engaging and brings a fresh perspective to an all-too-familiar plot. The story does sag at points, but the performances and design are worth it.

I saw this for Patsy Ferran, having fallen completely in love with her Blanche DuBois, and she did not disappoint. Her comedic timing is formidable, but her greatest strength is her ability to cut straight to the emotional core of a character; in certain scenes after the Reception, her performance is devastating in a way I was not expecting from this play. Bertie Carvel is also wonderful, sharply portraying Higgins - very much agreed on the Willem Defoe comparison above! It's a strong ensemble, who really buy into the larger-than-life style that Jones is going for. I think it works.

The set and lighting designs are very bold, with hints of "a proper set" in some of the trucks, but mostly the aforementioned whiteboard-style walls. It felt almost Brechtian in places which really suited the absurdity and quietly bleak comedy of the play.

There were clearly some settling-in issues, but I think this will be a smash once it opens. Is it a play that demands revival today? Probably not. But this exciting production, which revitalises many of the themes of abuse and class, is how it ought to be done, if we want to bring it back.

[Steve]

Saw this tonight and thought it was absolutely brilliant!

For me, Richard Jones does the remarkable, which is to present the whole play, without tampering with it to more than an imperceptible degree, and yet add whole additional levels of insight.

Patsy Ferran and Bertie Carvel are fantastic together.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is the revised version of the play that Shaw wrote, adding the changes he made for the 1938 movie, which is why it's so similar to "My Fair Lady," which they got to work on as soon as Shaw died, in defiance of his wish that it not be turned into a musical lol.

Shaw insisted they cast Wendy Hiller in the 1938 movie, having already used her in a production on stage, so for me, her "Lisson Grove 1912 accent" is a touchstone for what Shaw envisioned the character might sound like, and I felt Patsy Ferran sounds much the same at the beginning of the play.

This is the third production I've seen of this play, and is the richest and most original by far.

The 2011 Garrick version was traditional, except Rupert Everett portrayed Higgins as dour and mean-spirited, rather than the excitable scientist and inventor that Shaw intended (see Leslie Howard in the 1938 film, for example, or read Shaw's notes on the character, that he wrote in response to everybody begging him to turn the story into a romcom). The best thing about the 2011 production was seeing Higgins's fierce mother (Diana Rigg) drip scorn all over Everett's Higgins's bad attitude.

At the Old Vic, in 2008, by contrast, I felt Tim Pigott-Smith was the quintessential Higgins, every bit the playful, excitable but casually superior gentleman that Shaw intended, and Michelle Dockery was the quintessential Eliza, opposite him, vulnerable but becoming a powerful defiant and emotional Galatea. The production was traditional in the best way, everything Shaw intended, no more no less.

This version goes beyond Shaw, without betraying him. It finds an explanation for why Higgins is the way he is. It makes sense of how an essentially decent playful guy can behave so pigheadedly.

And it goes further still, exploring the value of compartmentalised (traditionally masculine) ways of thinking and the value of emotionalism (traditionally feminine) in contrast to rationalism.

The result of this intellectual distance is to move away from judging the characters, towards having compassion for them all, especially for Bertie Carvel's Higgins, who can't help the way he is, and lacks the flexibility of Eliza to change.

How is this achieved?

The set takes the face of the technology Higgins uses to obsess about the world, the blocks and dots of loudspeakers, that broadcast the audio signals Higgins records, and it turns the whole world of the set into such blocks and dots. Higgins's scientific and rational and compartmentalised vision of the world becomes Jones's vision of the play, compartmentalising and analysing the characters in every carefully co-ordinated mise-en-scene.

Jones creates a wordless new scene, as we enter Higgins's digs for the first time, that introduces us to Higgins's meticulous, minute and scrupulous way of dividing up the world into a million different sounds and pieces. Behind Carvel's Higgins are his charts compartmentalising the world; behind that are the blocks of the set design whereby Jones compartmentalises it all over again; and in front of all this, Carvel's Higgins points to letters on a board and divides every vowel of the English language into a million sounds. It is an electric and revelatory scene, showing not only how his mind works, but how his whole world works, how civilisation works!

And now Patsy Ferran's unspoiled emotional Eliza must walk into this world of tiny boxes, and be cut up by it as if by a shredder.

Jones coaxes Ferran's Eliza into an almost constant state of childlike emotionalism. Nothing Dockery (2008) or Tointon (2011) or Hiller (1938) did embodied so much pure emotion as what Ferran does. If she's going to be carved by Carvel into a stiff Galatean civilised statue, it is important for Jones that Ferran's Eliza is pure, unspoiled, uncivilised emotionalism, so that he can feed her into Carvel's Higgins's carving machine to be civilised. Jones wants us to feel and see visually what our civilisation is like.

As an astute board member posted above, it is likely that Carvel's Higgins is "on the spectrum," since being on the spectrum is associated with a difficulty in emotionally relating, a propensity to carve the world up into easily digestible boxes, an obsession with understanding everything that comes from this inability to emotionally react the way "normies" do. And yet, even classifying people as "on the spectrum," rather than simply accepting people's individuality and quirks, is proof of how our civilisation itself is "on the spectrum," carving up people into easily digestible boxes.

And the play shows us the price we pay for the boxes we fit into, it shows us the rewards we gain for fitting into the boxes others expect us to, and it shows us how deeply tragic it can be if a compromise between emotionalism and rationality cannot be reached.

Carvel's astonishing performance of a playful mind that can't feel what others feel, and Ferran's astonishing performance of a playful mind that feels everything are instrumental in fulfilling Jones's vision of delivering Shaw's play in a way that is simultaneously faithful to Shaw's class commentary, but also many levels deeper.

5 stars from me.

[rumbledoll]

What a review, Steve! Wow.
I hate to miss it as I needed to move my trip, the run is so incredibly short.. hope it has more life beyond Old Vic walls.

[ceebee]

One free stalls ticket for Mon 11 Sept Row G via Noticeboard.

[mkb]

I'm going tomorrow and they still can't tell me whether there will be an interval.

Clearly these things are decided by creatives with no empathy for those of us with weak bladders, so I shall have to assume there won't be an interval and avoid fluids from lunchtime. Will therefore be miffed if they belatedly introduce one and I've thirsted in vain.

[zahidf]

Saw it tonight! Was 2 hours without an interval

Great production. Was a lot of laughing, so audience definitely saw it as a comedy

Bertie and Patsy are great, but whole cast was fun.

I definitely got the impression that Higgins is being played as being on the spectrum somewhat, as he was played as genuinely not knowing why people would be hurt by his behaviour/words

[mkb]

I was unsure about booking for this as I've seen both Shaw's play and My Fair Lady many times, but the casting and £10.75 tickets convinced me, and I am delighted I did. This is such a different take.

Finally, Higgins is resolved. Is he closeted homosexual? Asexual? Shy romantic in denial? Or simply stiff-upper-lip repressed? Previous interpretations have never felt entirely believable. By placing the professor some considerable way along an autistic spectrum, director Richard Jones has brought fresh insight. No longer is the railing by Higgins at those around him merely a plot device that can be mined for humour and social commentary; instead, it now allows the audience to fully sympathise with his plight. This Higgins is no longer an unfeeling brute, but someone whose world is different from those around him, and our respone is to understand him and to pity him.

SPOILER: Click to show

The long-held pause right on the end where Higgins has some realisation of his situation is quite devasting.

In no small measure is this success down to Bertie Carvell's masterly portrayal, although I could not help think he was in part channelling -- not Richard Briers or Willem Defoe mentioned by others -- but rather Corrie's Brian Packham.

And what of Miss Doolittle? Again, I have never been truly happy with past Elizas. The actresses cast always seem to excel as the well-spoken, post-tuition version, but struggle as a caricature Cockney prior to that. Initial Eliza is meant to convince as a street urchin, and not look like a middle-class, white girl disguised in rags. Patsy Ferran is so talented that she has no such issues, nailing both Elizas with aplomb, favouring realism over stereotype in her accents. Post transformation, she's also the smartest Eliza (in both senses) that I've seen, and the most aware of that character's potentially tragic outcome that mirrors Higgins'. She's helped enormously here by Stewart Laing's gorgeous costumes, the last of which would not have looked out of place on a young Katharine Hepburn. Her power-dressing in trouser suit -- not sure if that's the correct description? -- works brilliantly.

There is VERY good support too from Michael Gould as Colonel Pickering, from Penny Layden as Mrs Pearce, the housekeeper, from John Marguez as Alfred Doolittle, and from Sylvestra Le Touzel as Mrs Higgins. One has an inkling here as to how the latter character might be partly to blame for her son's inability to engage emotionally.

I was not so sure about the set (also from Laing). Higgin's tuition takes places in a room that feels like a hybrid of a large radio studio and a laboratory. I imagine this is what Higgins' home looks like in his head. It sort of works, but, at least, did not detract.

As usual with George Bernard Shaw, he gets a little verbose in the final act, using his characters to lecture the audience with his own opinions, risking destroying the characterisations he has built. The acting and direction are so well tuned that Shaw gets away with it here.

Five stars.

All acts, no interval(s): 19:32-21:29

(It's difficult to argue when I've already given this a top rating, but I think the humourous aspects would have worked even better with an opportunity for libation before the show and during an interval.)

[zahidf]

There is a point in the play where they could put in an interval, but im guessing they wont this late on. Probably for the best, does make it better as a production , gives it a kinetic energy

[Being Alive]

There is some discussion about an interval being tested sometime this week (might be tonight I'm a bit unclear)

[partytentdown]

Here now and there's a rumour of an interval!

[partytentdown]

Confirmed...
Act 1 80 minutes, interval, Act 2 40 minutes.