Atlantic Theatre Festival, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
12 September 1998
The Atlantic Theatre Festival Pygmalion was a solid, professional production (and with the same company as the Othello we'd seen earlier -- Desdemona was Eliza, Cassio was Henry Higgins, Brabantio was Albert Doolittle, etc.) What we particularly liked was the set -- they had about six huge pillars on rollers, that were two different kinds of pillars or opened up to be bookcases as part of Higgins's place, and a big French door in a bay which could be rotated to hav e two different decors. While they manipulated the sets various members of the company did music hall songs ("Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage," etc.). The accents were a little, um, sloppy, especially in that opening scene where Henry identifies everyone by their accents. Honest, there was no difference at all . . . but there was lots of momentum and it actually seemed as though, for a wonder, Shaw had at least once written a play instead of a series of clever speeches. And only about twice did I start to slip into My Fair Lady (at one point, Higgins actually says, in Shaw's script, "I've grown accustomed to her face"). To discuss or comment on this review, send email to hunt@stu.ca Back to list of reviews
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