z
t: a: )2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

at“

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

Comparison of Plot and Characters in
Bernard Shaw's 1912 PYGMALION
and its Screenplay in 1938.

presented by

Kristen Jean Koehler

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

MA Theatre

degree in

 

 

XMAW

Aajor professor

Date G/kmz 30% /797
y

0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

   
   
    

 
 

LIBRARY

"Chigan State
niversity

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.

 

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

'f23
.. 889 “Nina 2W, ‘

m In

 

 

 

 

Moi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution
€1me

 

lb

COMPARISON OF PLOT AND CHARACTERS IN
BERNARD SHAW'S 1912 PYGMALION
AND ITS SCREENPLAY IN 1938

BY

Kristen Jean Koehler

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Theatre

1994

ABSTRACT

COMPARISON OF PLOT AND CHARACTERS IN
BERNARD SHAW'S 1912 PYGMALION
AND ITS SCREENPLAY IN 1938
BY

Kristen Jean Koehler

This thesis will explore interpretations of the story
of Pygmalion for stage (1912) and screen (1938) by Bernard
Shaw. Comparisons will be made in the areas of plot
development and character. Included in this study will be
background information on the play and screenplay, a
discussion of plot structure, a description of the plot
development of the play, a comparison of the plot
development in the resulting screenplay, and a comparison of
characters in both versions.

In consideration of the above material, conclusions will be
made concerning the effects of the changes in plot
development and character upon the overall dramatic concept

of the resulting screenplay.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I: Pygmalion on Stage and on Screen.

CHAPTER II: Play Plot, Structure and Content.

CHAPTER III: Plot Development Comparison of Screenplay.

CHAPTER IV: Comparison of Characters.
CONCLUSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

iii

18
32
50
60

63

I NTRODUCT I ON

From myth to modern times, the romantic story of
Pygmalion and Galatea has been a favorite subject of artists
from across the media. Whether it is told through oils, as
in the painting Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Leon Gerome
(after 1881), or in music, as the famous musical My Fair
Lady (1956) that Alan Jay Lerner, librettist, and Frederick
Lowe, composer, created from Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion
(1912), the fantastical story of creator and creation has
captured the affections of millions.

The origin of the story is found in myth and the
beautiful elegance of Ovid's poetic creation, Metamorphoses.
According to Bulfinch's Mythology the story is about a man
named Pygmalion who "saw so much to blame in women that he
came at last to abhor the sex, and resolved to live
unmarried" (62). As his profession was that of a sculptor,
he created an ivory statue of a beautiful young woman and
soon fell in love with his creation. He would shower the
object of his affections with gifts, and he even laid her
upon a couch, her head upon a pillow and called her his
wife. When the festival of Venus was taking place,
Pygmalion asked for a wife "one like my ivory virgin", and
when he arrived home he found that when he kissed it seemed
warm (63). When he touched it, "the ivory felt soft to his

1

2
touch and yielded to his fingers like the wax of Hymettus"
(63). His creation was alive. Venus blessed their union,
and a child named Paphos was born to the couple.

This thesis will explore interpretations of this story
for stage (1912) and screen (1938) by Bernard Shaw called
Pygmalion. Comparisons will be made in the areas of plot
development and character. Included in the study will be a
discussion of plot structure, a description of the plot
development of the play, a comparison of the plot of the
resulting screenplay, and a comparison of the characters in
both versions.

The comparison of the plot development of the play and
screenplay will note similarities and differences in
content, arrangement, and treatment of materials in the six
major steps in plot development which are as follows:
opening situation, rising action, turning point, falling
action, climax, and the ending's denouement.

In regard to characters, this thesis will note the
similarities and differences between the play's and the
screenplay's characters in the following areas: the number
and size of roles, complexity of characterization, character
relationships, and character plausibility (determined by
motivations and presence or absence of character growth).
Finally, the method of introduction of major characters will
be explored.

In consideration of the above material, conclusions

will be made concerning the effects of the changes in plot

3
development and character upon the overall dramatic concept
of the resulting screenplay.

Although Bernard Shaw has been a force in the dramatic
community whose works, or plays, have been thoroughly
critiqued and analyzed by theatre scholars for many years,
no studies have been mounted to examine his skill at the
distinct craft of writing screenplays and how well his text
for the stage translates to the modern screen. The absence
of study in this area may be due to the fame that Shaw has
held has been in the area of theatre above all, and this
fame has overshadowed his ventures into writing for film.

In the interest of understanding an author of Shaw's
magnitude, critiquing and analyzing his lesser known or
renowned work in media other than the stage should be an
illuminating experience in viewing how well Shaw's work
translates in the areas of plot development and characters
from medium to another. By this examination we may perhaps
come to a better understanding of the talents that Shaw
holds in the area of screenwriting, and overall how this
adds to our appreciation of Shaw as both a playwright and a
screenwriter.

Besides the esteem in which the award-winning author is
held in the dramatic community, the play Pygmalion has also
been admired as a work that is worthy of examination as
well. In regards to the 1938 screen version of the play, it
was called by New York's Daily Mirror, "a perfect movie" and

further "It reveals [Shaw] as a scenarist fully equal to

4
Hollywood. It's universal in its appeal" (Dukore,
Screenplays 85).

The major limitation in a study of this type is that
the dramatic structure of a play with its divisions found by
way of acts and scenes does not share the same flowing,
unbroken quality of a screenplay. Fortunately, at the time
the screenplay was completed in 1938, which was near the
birth of film as a true art form, the medium was still in
its childhood. Therefore, the screenplay of Pygmalion was
not impossible to compare to its source because it followed
very closely to the structure of the play itself. Whether
this was because of the still young art of film making or
whether it was because the protective nature of the
playwright who was also the screenwriter, comparing the
flowing nature of a screenplay and the very different
staggered stopping and starting nature of a play proved
difficult but not impossible.

The discussion of play plot structure and the nature of
film will be explored in the opening sections of chapters II
and III. These sections will provide a more detailed
account of the structure and the nature of the two distinct
forms.

Another challenge encountered in this study, although
smaller, was the use of dated and regionalized words which
most people do not encounter, understand, or appreciate
their intended meaning almost a century later in America.

The instances in which this occurred in the text were mainly

5
found in the play. Very wisely, Shaw removed most of the
confusing references for his screenplay version.

Perhaps the most important example of a word in the
play not being fully appreciated years later is the use of
the word "bloody" in the play and screenplay. In today's
world of graphic language, violence, and images, the word
"bloody" would seem rather tame in almost any conversation.
The amazing stir that arose when word leaked out to the
press before the opening of the play in London on April
11th, 1914 seems quite amusing to us now, but in 1914 it was
quite scandalous.

Since the main interest of this study is the plot
development and characters of the screenplay version of
Pygmalion, conclusions will be made only concerning the
overall dramatic concept of the resulting screenplay. Also,
even though three names are mentioned in the British motion
picture's screen credits as adapters (W. P. Lipscomb, Cecil
Lewis, and Ian Dalrymple), no attempt will be made to note
the contributions of the three. Instead, to assure
consistent crediting, this thesis will consider and refer to
the work of the resulting screenplay as that of Mr. Shaw.

In addition to these introductory comments, four
chapters of information will be presented, as well as a
conclusion.

In chapter one, background information concerning the
origins of the play, biographical information on the famous

playwright and screenwriter, the history of Pygmalion as a

 

6
vehicle for the stage, and the history of Pygmalion as a
vehicle for the screen will be discussed in order to enhance
the overall understanding of the author and his work.

In the first section of chapter two, a discussion of
the dramatic structure of plot will examine the six steps in
plot development which are the opening situation, rising
action, the turning point, falling action, the climax, and
the ending which includes the denouement. In the second
section of the chapter the development of the plot of the
play Pygmalion will be traced with special attention given
to the six steps in plot development.

In the third chapter a comparison of the plot
development in the screenplay will address similarities and
differences in the plot of the screenplay, with regard given
to the steps of plot development already mentioned, as well
as a brief discussion of the differences between theatre and
film.

A comparison of characters in the play and screenplay
will be surveyed in the fourth chapter. The major
characters of the play and screenplay will be discussed in
the areas of complexity of character, character
relationships, and character plausibility.

The final section of the paper will address two major
questions in regards to the screenplay of Pygmalion. First,
what were the effects of the changes in plot development
upon the overall dramatic concept of the screenplay?

Second, what were the effects of the changes in character

7
upon the overall dramatic concept of the screenplay?

The following texts of the play and screenplay will be
compared:

The Washington Square Press Publication of Pocket
gaaga, which is a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. (New
York), 1973 edition of Shaw's Pygmalion.

The University of Georgia Press (Athens, Georgia) 1980
edition of Shaw's Pygmalion located in The Collected
Screenplays of Bernard Shag edited with an introduction by
Bernard F. Dukore.

A note should be given on the text used for the
screenplay. The editor of the book, Mr. Dukore, stated that
although Shaw once published a 'screen version' of
Pygmalion, he never published a version of the story with
all the new sequences, instead Shaw "combined new film
sequences with uncut and unaltered acts of the stage plays"
(459).

Dukore examined four sources for the text of Pygmalion.
Among them were the October 1934 holograph manuscript,
Constable's 1927 edition of the play (London), Pygmalion a
Scenario which was a typed manuscript to be used for
translation into Polish, and the Bodley Head edition of the
play text which was revised for the Standard Edition.

A variety of secondary sources were consulted for this
study. Among those sources were biographies, criticism, and
sources which gave insight into the structure and art of

dramatic writing.

CHAPTER I
PYGMALION ON STAGE AND ON SCREEN
Shaw wrote the play Pygmaliaa in 1912 and 1913 though

the idea of the play had come to him about fifteen years
earlier. The story was written specifically for a talented
actress of the day - Mrs. Patrick (Stella) Campbell, who
shall be described in further depth later in the text. Shaw
in use of the title Pygmalion, alludes to the origin of the
story belonging to mythology.

In its mythological origins Pygmalion was the story of
a man who had grown to hate all women and decided to live
the rest of his life alone and celibate. Pygmalion was a
sculptor who had created an ivory statue of a beautiful
maiden. The work was so perfect that it looked as if the
work had sprung to life and often Pygmalion would touch the
statue to reassure himself that the statue was living or
not. Pygmalion fell in love with his creation, and he would
treat the statue as a living woman. He would buy her gifts,
dress her with jewelry, and laid her upon his bed and
treated her as his wife. When the festival of Venus came
about, Pygmalion attended and asked for a wife like his
ivory virgin. When Pygmalion arrived home after the
festival, he discovered that his beautiful creation was soft
to his touch and opened her eyes upon his kisses. Venus
blessed the union, and of this union a son was born.

Although the play by Shaw was called a "romance," the
greatest departure from its mythological origins was that

8

 

 

9

Shaw insisted that the aspect of romantic love does not
exist in the relationship between Eliza and Henry. It was
Shaw's belief that it is romantic enough for a flower girl
to be transformed into a lady and, therefore, a romantic
relationship between Eliza and Higgins was not necessary.
Perhaps the lack of a relationship also existed because of
Shaw's immense dislike of the artificiality and "the
sentimental, romantic, conventional ideas, and false ideals
.n the plays of the period; he had a special dislike for the
'well-made play' because its contrived action gave an untrue
picture of the way events occurred in real life" (Goodman
295). Another reason would be that the "excessive
dependence of Henry Higgins upon his mother and his lack of
interest in young women reflect Shaw's own emotional and
sexual constitutions and inclinations" (Goodman 299).
Perhaps the lack of the stock happy ending was not as
unpleasant idea as most audiences have thought over the
years. In the book Versioaa of Pygmalion by J. Hillis
Miller, the author compared the love that Pygmalion had for
Galatea to that of an incest, "Pygmalion is Galatea's
fathering maker as well as her husband. To sleep with her
is to sleep with his own daughter" (10—11).

Randolph Goodman in his book From Script to Staaa cites
another possible origin of the play Pygmalion that came from

a novel by Tobias Smollett called The Adventurea of

 

Peregrine Pickle (1751). Although Shaw had no recollection

of reading the work, the summary that Goodman provided of

10
Chapter 87 of the book shows the clear connections between
the two stories as follows

Peregrine is accosted on the road by a beggar-
woman and her daughter. The girl is young and
beautiful but very coarse and dirty. Peregrine is
attracted to her, has a talk with her mother, 'and
for a small sum of money purchased her property in
the wench.‘ Peregrine orders his man, Thomas, to
take the girl away and clean her up. Despite her
screams and curses the girl is bathed and
scrubbed, and her clothes are burned. When
Peregrine next sees her, he is amazed at the
transformation. Believing that the only
difference between a person of the upper class and
one of the lower resides in his education,
Peregrine undertakes to improve the girl's speech
and behavior and to pass her off as a lady....The
most difficult obstacle he has to overcome,
however, is her 'habit of swearing, which she had
indulged in from infancy.’ The girl passes a
preliminary test when she is introduced to a
company of gentlemen and impresses them as 'a
sprightly young lady, of uncommon learning and
taste.‘ Peregrine then takes her to London, where
his Swiss valet gives her lessons in French and
dancing, after which she is ready to make her
debut at a great ball. She is accepted as a lady
of fashion and invited to elegant parties; at one
of these she catches another lady cheating at
cards and, in her wrath, drops her mask of
gentility, lets go a flood of vile language, snaps
her fingers in the face of the company, and leaves
the room, applying 'her hand to that part which
was the last of her that disappeared, inviting the
company to kiss it, by of its coarsest
denominations'...Shortly afterward, the girl
elopes with the Swiss valet; Peregrine becomes
angry at first, but then decides to set the young
couple up in business as proprietors of a coffee-
house and tavern. (209- 300)

Several of the actions in The Adventures of Peregrine

Pickle are echoed in Shaw's Pygmalion. For example, buying

 

the common girl from her parent, having the girl
unrecognizably transformed by a bath and the burning of her

old clothes, the removal of social barriers between the

l1
economic classes by an education, a preliminary test before
the final test at the ball (and passing these tests), the
use of a vulgar term for titillation, and the transformed
girl running off with another man instead of her teacher.

The characters in Pickle are also echoed in Shaw's play
as: Pickle as Higgins and Pickering, the Swiss valet as
Freddy Eynsford-Hill, the common girl as Eliza, and "the two
interesting parents involved, Mr. Doolittle and Mrs.
Higgins, are characteristically Shavian creations" (Goodman
300).

Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1856 to an undomestic mother
who was a singing teacher and a father who was a drunk,
George Bernard Shaw (later the first name was shortened to a
G. and then dropped) grew up in a household that "had all
the makings of a bad home" (Gassner and Quinn 775).

An uneventful and short career in formal education led
to a job in office work. Soon after, at age twenty, Shaw
left Dublin for London to embark on a career as a novelist.
Between 1879 and 1884 Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels
while he lived with his sisters and his mother who was
separated from his father. During this time he also took on
several journalistic endeavors. He worked as a book
reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette, an art critic for Tha
Wagid, and a music critic for The Star.

After reading the leaflet "Why are So Many Poor?" a man
who once defined himself as being a "member of an

individualist state, and therefore nobody's comrade,‘ made a

12
surprising visit on May 16, 1884 to his first meeting of the
Fabian Society (Holroyd, Search 125). He was to find his
political home with the Fabian Society which was a group of
middle-class intellectuals who spoke of a better society
through socialism.
In fact, Pygmalion presents a side of Shaw's socialist
philosophy. As a Fabian he believed that the
"democratization of society depended upon the removal of the
barriers between classes, and the institution of economic
and educational equality" (Goodman 300). This idea arises
as a theme of Pygmaaion.

The beginnings of Shaw's career in the theatre can be
traced back to his collaborative effort with a friend and
fellow critic William Archer. The two men began working on
a play that would soon turn out to be the work credited to
Shaw alone - Widowers' Houses (1892). Soon after this first
work many other plays would follow. Between the period of
1892 and 1947, Shaw wrote about fifty plays. Among some of
them were The Philanderer (1893), Mag. Warren's Profesaaon
(1893), Armaaand the Man (1894), Candida (1895), and lag
Never Can Tell (1899). Although these plays weren't key in
establishing him as a success in theatre, it wouldn't be too
long until he first moved into public acclaim with the work
of the Court Theatre cementing his achievement (Gassner and
Quinn 776).

In describing the goals and didactic nature of a

Shavian play, The Conciae Oxford Companion to Theatre noted

13

he set out to appeal to the intellect and not the
emotions of his audiences, and introduced on stage
subjects previously confined to the lawcourts, the
church pulpit, or the political platform - slum
landlordism, prostitution, war, religion, family
quarrels, health, economics. Thought, not action,
was the mainspring of the Shavian play. (500)

In 1898 Shaw married a wealthy Irish heiress named
Charlotte Payne-Townshend whom he met through the Fabian
Society. The married relationship between the two was a
celibate one. Shaw, who had been a virgin until twenty-nine
had several affairs in his thirties, decided at forty-three
to live his private life in lifelong companionship without
family or intercourse (Gassner and Quinn 776).

After writing three very successful plays (Maja;
Barbara, 1905; The Doctor's Dilemma, 1906; and Androcles and
the Lion, 1911), Shaw wrote a play which became the
playwright's "most popular work and the one that brought him
the largest financial returns" - Pygmalion in 1912 (Goodman
297).

In the following year, Shaw's mother died. It was
around this time that the playwright spoke of his
infatuation with the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell to friend
Ellen Terry. Shaw said that he "fell head over heels in
love with her (Mrs. Campbell) in thirty seconds" (Laurence
111).

In 1925 Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize and he gave
the prize money to the Anglo-Swedish Literary Alliance for

the promotion of literature and art between Sweden and

England.

 

14

During the second World War in 1943, Shaw's wife died
leaving her husband to outlive "her longer than he wanted
to" (Gassner and Quinn 777). At age ninety-one Shaw wrote
his last play which was called Buoyant Billions.

On Tuesday, October 31, 1950, Shaw said that he was
going to die, and three days later on November 2, 1950 he
died in his garden at his home Ayot St. Lawrence as the
result of a fall.

Upon his death, Shaw left a fortune, about $1,225,000 -
which has tripled since 1950. He asked that the money be
used for reforming the English language, but British law
negated this request and granted another provision which was
to divide the money equally among the Irish National
Gallery, the Reading Room of the British Museum, and the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

In the book by Richard Huggett entitled The Truth
About Pygmalion, a gossipy view of the first production of
the play was laid out for all to delight in an insider's
View. In fact, when Mrs. Patrick Campbell was in declining
years and was pleading with Shaw for permission to print
their correspondence for money, Shaw (whose wife was still
alive at the time) refused and offered a piece of advice to
Mrs. Campbell that surely would have helped her financial
situation tremendously, to write the "utter, grotesque
truth" of the story of Pygmalion (Huggett 5). Although Shaw
and Campbell never got around to writing the story of this

undertaking, Mr. Huggett did and he spoke of those involved

15
in this venture,

...Shaw, Mrs. Pat and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
met and worked together for the first time in
their careers. Here were three of the most
monstrous egotists the theatre ever produced, all
at the height of their talents and fame, all
accustomed to getting their own way in everything
without opposition, now meeting in headlong
collision. Individually they were difficult
enough, if not downright fireworks but all three
together working on the same play was theatrical
dynamite. (5-6)

Huggett also cleverly described the point at which

these artists were in their professional lives as
For Tree, Pygmalion was the final, exultant climax
to a long and distinguished life in the theatre.
For Mrs. Pat it was the crest of a wave which was
soon to crash on to a hard and stony beach. For
Shaw, it was a turning point which was to change
him from being the darling of the intellectual
coteries into a household word...(6)

Surprisingly, the production of Pygmalion was not to
open in London, but it first opened for audiences in Germany
at the Hofburg Theatre, Vienna on October 16, 1913. It was
first presented in English at His Majesty's Theatre in

London on April 11, 1914. The following cast members

performed in that production:

Clara Eynsford-Hill
Mrs. Eynsford-Hill

A Bystander

Freddy Eynsford-Hill
Eliza Doolittle

Colonel Pickering
Henry Higgins

A Sarcastic Bystander
Mrs. Pearce

Alfred Doolittle

Mrs. Higgins
Parlormaid

Margaret Busse
Carlotta Addison
Roy Byford
Algernon Grief
Mrs. Patrick
Campbell

Philip Merivale
Herbert Tree
Alexander Sarner
Geraldine Olliffe
Edmund Gurney
Rosamund Mayne—Young
Irene Delisse.

16

For the New York opening of the play, Mrs. Campbell
once again played Eliza and this time Philip Merivale played
Higgins at the Park Theatre on October 12, 1914.

Surprisingly, studio heads did not find Shavian drama
as being "too highbrow" nor did they consider Shaw as "box
office poison" after the failure of the screen version of
Arma and the Mag, but the producer of the film did encounter
many difficulties with getting a British production of the
story in motion (Dukore 65-6). There were several reasons
why this occurred. First, Gabriel Pascal, the producer, was
considered quite inexperienced as well as the trying
agreement which gave him the right to produce the screen
version of Pygmalion, but the play's film rights were still
retained by the author (Dukore 66). Finally, this
production took longer to get backing because Shaw was not
so anxious to have his plays filmed that he would accept a
contract which did not suit his desires.

Despite the dragging that occurred before the play was
produced, a contract was agreed upon and the first showings
of Pygmalion occurred on October 6, 1938 in London and
December 7, 1938 in New York it opened. Those credited
among the production in cast and crew of this screen version

are as follows:

Henry Higgins Leslie Howard
Liza Doolittle Wendy Hiller
Alfred Doolittle Wilfred Lawson
Mrs. Higgins Marie Lohr
Colonel Pickering Scott Sunderland
Mrs. Pearce Jean Cadell

Freddy Eynsford-Hill David Tree

17

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill
Clara Eynsford-Hill
Count Aristid Karpathy
Ambassadress

Vicar

First Bystander
Second Bystander
Third Bystander
Sarcastic Bystander
Ysabel

Perfide

Duchess

A Grand Old Lady
Her Son

A Lady

First Constable
Second Constable
Taxi Driver
Parlormaid
Hairdresser

PRODUCER
DIRECTORS

SCREENPLAY & DIALOGUE
ADAPTERS

SET DESIGNER

DRESS DESIGNER
EXECUTED BY
PHOTOGRAPHY

CAMERA

EDITOR

MUSIC

ADDITIONAL COMPOSITION
CONDUCTOR

ART DIRECTOR
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
RECORDIST
PRODUCTION MANAGER

Everley Gregg
Leueen MacGrath
Esme Percy
Violet Vanbrugh
O.B. Clarence
Wally Patch
H.F. Maltby
George Mozart
Ivor Barnard
Iris Hoey

Viola Tree
Irene Brown
Kate Cutler

Leo Genn
Kathleen Nesbitt
Cecil Trouncer
Stephen Murray
Frank Atkinson
Eileen Beldon
Anthony Quayle

 

Gabriel Pascal
Anthony Asquith
Leslie Howard
Bernard Shaw

W.P. Lipscomb, Cecil
Lewis,

Ian Dalrymple
Laurence Irving
Professor L. Czettell
Worth and Schiaparelli
Harry Stradling

Jack Hildyard

David Lean

Arthur Honegger

Dr. William Axt

Louis Levy

John Bryan

Teddy Baird

Alex Fisher

Phil G. Samuel.

Due to the inspiration of the talented playwright and

screenwriter and to the talented pool of artists who helped

create and establish the rich history of this work for stage

and screen, Pygmalion has had a long-lasting love affair

with audiences from across the globe.

CHAPTER II
PLAY PLOT, STRUCTURE, AND CONTENT
With its beginnings traced back to the earliest rites
of primitive man, the simplest pantomime would tell a story
or the plot, "I came upon a fierce animal, he growled and
attacked me, I crouched, I cast my spear, released my arrow,

killed him, and brought him home" (Gassner, Masters 8). We

 

still find the same interest that our primitive forefathers
found in a good story, but, more specifically, what are the
components of plot?

In searching for a scholarly definition of this term, I
was surprised to find that several authors avoided offering
a quick, concise definition to readers perhaps because in
scholarly conscience they couldn't because they would be
"cheating" their readers by not exploring every single
aspect of the term. Nonetheless, a definition of the
components of plot could be found under "dramatic structure"
in Thaatre Language: A Dictionary of Terms in English
defined as "In a dramatic composition, the arrangement of
plot materials in a unified effective form, including
exposition, complication, climax, denouement" (Bowman and
Ball 112).

When discussing the structure of a play by Shaw,
several other playwrights' names arise who were said to be
intentional and unintentional sources of his structural
inspiration for how he crafted his own plays. Through
closer examination, Shaw's structural influences can be

18

19
traced to the structural style of playwright Henrik Ibsen,
who, in turn, was influenced by "the well-constructed but
artificial" well-made" plays of Eugene Scribe, whose
successor was Victorien Sardou (Gassner and Quinn 911-12).
In fact, Shaw was said to be one of the first to find genius
in the work of Ibsen, and interpreted Ibsen's formula to be
exposition, situation, discussion and used this formula in
his own work (Marx 116).

Yet, before Shaw had heard of Ibsen in 1887 he was
collaborating on a play with fellow writer and friend
William Archer, and an interesting argument would follow
over the plot construction of their work when Shaw came to a
standstill on their work and came to Archer for a skeleton
of the last three acts. Archer was a great advocate of mid-
nineteenth-century French Theatre, and Shaw denounced the
"sterile artifice of constructed drama" saying their play
had an organic growth "like a flowering plant" and could
never be "manufactured...according to plans and
specifications supplied by an inventor" (Holroyd, Search
276). The incongruity of the whole event was that "if Shaw
wishes to do without plans and specifications, why has he
based his play on a French model, and why was he coming to
Archer to ask for more sections of the event-plot or
'Skeleton'" (Holroyd, Search 276)?

The unintentional influences of Scribe and Sardou, in
the form of using the techniques of the well-made play, can

be found in Shaw's work despite Shaw's attempts to "kill"

20
the well-made play through his criticism as an English
drama critic for the Saturday Review (May 27, 1895) (Gassner
and Quinn 912). Further, Shaw's famous accusation of
"Sardoodledom" attacked the "Sardou type of play for its
irrelevance to the point of immorality" (Gassner and Quinn
576).

In Milton Marx's book entitled The Enjoyment of Drama,
he described the how the plot is developed throughout the
structure of the play. In regards to the first act, it
should accomplish the following: overall it should set the
groundwork for the rest of the play, be especially clear in
establishing relationships, initiate atmosphere and the
opening situation, introduce most of the characters of the
play, begin the plot movement, provide expository material,
and indicate conflicts which should leave the audience
asking, "What's next for our hero?" (40-46).

After the plot movement has been started and the
groundwork has been laid in the first act, the second act's
main concern is to provide rising action, which comes about
from complications caused by the conflicting forces in the
play (Marx 46-7). The main purpose of the rising action is
to lead up to the turning point in the play.

In a five-act play structure, the turning point in the
play usually occurs in the third act. The turning point is
when the action has taken "a definite direction towards the
ending" (Marx 47). In other words, the final answer to the

questions raised during the first act will be answered at

21
the climax of the play, but it "begins to come into direct
view for the first time at the turning point" (Marx 47).
80, according to Marx, the turning point must do the
following: "concern the main character, follow logically
from the rising action and lead directly to the climax, it
must be the decisive clash in the plot, and it must also
represent the crisis in the general conflict that expresses
the theme" (50).

Falling action is the next segment in dramatic
structure. Very simply, it is the part of the play in
between the turning point and the climax. One of the final
parts of dramatic structure is the climax. The climax is
the moment that the highest emotional interest level is
reached. The placement of the climax at the end of the play
is due to the fact that anything after this point is a
letdown and emotionally it is the end of the story (Marx
53).

Finally, the ending, which contains the denouement, is
the last part of the play that follows the climax. It is
usually very short, and its purpose is "to bring the
audience back to earth from an emotional height" and of the
denouement is to tie up the loose ends of the play (Marx
54).

Pygmalion is a play in 5 acts with 2, 4, 2, 2, and 1
scene respectively.

The play opens late in the evening in London during a

heavy summer rainstorm. Pedestrians are running about

22
looking for shelter and cabs after a theatrical performance
just let out. During this act we meet most of the important
characters in the play. Among those gathered under the
portico of a church are the Eynsford-Hill family, Eliza
Doolittle, Colonel Pickering, and Henry Higgins.

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her daughter Clara open the play
wondering where Freddy, Clara's brother, can be since he has
been out looking for a cab for rather a long time. As they
discuss their situation, Freddy arrives and announces that
there is not a cab to be found. After scolding him for not
looking hard enough, Freddy is sent back out into the rain
to look for a cab. As he dashes off he collides with a
young, dirty-looking flower girl and he scatters her flowers
all about.

Eliza calls after the stranger by name and tells him to
watch where he is going. Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, concerned that
such a lowly creature would know her son by name, approaches
the flower girl and asks how the girl how she knows her
son's name. After convincing the lady to pay for the ruined
flowers, Eliza tells her that she merely calls all strangers
Freddy or Charlie.

Just as they finish talking, an older gentleman rushes
in from the rain. Eliza, seizing the moment for another
sale, tries to sell the gentleman a flower. After badgering
him to buy a flower, the gentleman gives her some change and
walks off. As he does a bystander tells Eliza to be careful

because another gentleman has been writing down everything

23
she has said. After whining that she is a good girl and
generally creating a scene, the notetaker quiets her by
showing her what he has taken down. Since it is phonetic
shorthand, Eliza can't read a word, but the man reads off
the exact words of Eliza in her Cockney dialect.

As the group which has gathered around begins to talk
to the notetaker, who is Henry Higgins, he immediately
identifies where each person is from by the dialect. Soon
after, the rain stops and the group scatters while the older
gentleman asks of Higgins' talents. Higgins even goes so
far as to boast that "in three months I could pass that girl
off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could
even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which
requires better English" (Shaw, Pygmalion 11). This
skillfully planted statement alludes to the movement of
things to come. The two soon discover that they are
colleagues. The older gentleman turns out to be Colonel
Pickering whom Higgins was preparing to visit in India, and
Pickering came to London to visit Higgins. As the two begin
to leave, Eliza asks for money for her lodging. Higgins
reminds her that she is not short for her lodging, but he
throws her a bunch of coins anyway.

Finally, Freddy shows up with a cab for his mother and
sister to find that they have already left. Eliza takes the
cab that Freddy has found back to her lodging thanks to the
money that Higgins has given her.

At the beginning of Act II it is the next day in

24
Higgins' laboratory in his home on Wimpole Street. Higgins
has just shown Pickering his whole setup. Mrs. Pearce,
Higgins' motherly housekeeper, enters looking perplexed.
She announces that a strange girl has come asking for the
professor. Thinking this a good opportunity to show
Pickering his techniques and observe her accent, he has her
shown in to the laboratory/drawing room.

When Eliza is shown in and Higgins recognizes her from
the preceding evening, her orders the flower girl to leave
since he has already recorded her accent and has no use for
her. Eliza does not oblige to his order, and when Pickering
asks what she has come for we learn Eliza's objective or her
desire,

I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of

sellin at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But
they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel.

He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready
to pay him - not asking any favor - and he treats
me zif I were dirt. (Shaw, Pygmalion 20)

With the small amount that Eliza is able to pay for her
lessons, Higgins calculates that proportionally it is a very
large sum considering her average daily income. Pickering
then starts the plot movement by making a wager that drives
the rest of the play along. He bets Higgins the expenses of
the experiment and the cost of Eliza's lessons that Higgins
can't teach Eliza to speak well enough to be passed off as a
lady at an ambassador's garden party in six months. Aroused

by the bet, Higgins accepts the wager and has Eliza sent off

to be cleaned, have her old clothes burned, and have new

25
clothes sent.

After voicing her objections to such a plan because the
girl might be married or have parents who would object, Mrs.
Pearce takes Eliza off questioning what is to become of the
girl when they have finished their experiment. Spurred on
by her question, Pickering asks if Higgins is a man of good
moral character in regards to women. Higgins answers that
he is and will remain a confirmed bachelor and would not
take advantage of the girl.

Mrs. Pearce soon returns with the news that Eliza's
father has arrived. Wary of a plot against them, Higgins
tells Alfred Doolittle to take his daughter and be off.
Doolittle reacts with surprise, after all Doolittle just
wants a five-pound note so that he can get drunk with his
common-law wife. The dustman's view of himself as being a
member of the undeserving poor and his pessimistic view of
middle class morality amuse Higgins and the professor offers
Doolittle ten-pounds instead of five. Refusing the ten-
pounds because it would be too much for a drinking spree,
Doolittle takes the requested five—pound note and begins to
leave. As he leaves, Eliza enters and Doolittle doesn't
recognize the cleaner version of his own daughter. Eliza is
disgusted by her father's intentions until her new clothes
arrive, and she is off with an "Ah-ow-oo-ooh!"

The second act ends with the first speech lesson for
Eliza. Throughout the lesson Eliza tries to shake her

Cockney accent despite the bullying of her overzealous

26
professor.

The third act opens in the drawing room of Henry's
mother, Mrs. Higgins. "Some months" have passed since we
last saw Henry. It is her day to receive guests in her
home. She is very upset that her son has decided to pay her
a visit on her at-home day because Henry has such bad
manners that he has offended many of her friends in the
past. She is further disturbed by her son's announcement
that he has invited a common flower girl to her home. He
tries to persuade his mother by saying that he has taught
her how to speak properly and that she will only speak on
two subjects - the weather and everybody's health. Since
Henry has made Eliza's speech sound more genteel, he
explains that he needs his mother's help to see if she is
presentable in social situations not by how well she speaks,
but on what subjects she chooses to speak.

Henry and Mrs. Higgins are interrupted by the parlor
maid who announces the arrival of the first two visitors who
are Mrs. and Miss Eynsford-Hill. Soon after, Colonel
Pickering is shown into the parlor and then Freddy Eynsford-
Hill. After a little small talk, a new elegant—looking
Eliza is shown into the room. She is introduced to all of
the other visitors and then takes off on her two subjects
for conversation.

Despite her restriction to the two simple subjects and
the beautiful precision of her speech, Eliza "fails her

smaller test" before the final test of the garden party by

 

27
showing that she is not ready for the social scene because
she is not aware of what is socially acceptable [i.e. "Walk.
Not bloody likely. I'm going in a taxi" (Shaw, Pygmalion
55)]. At this moment a common cliche seems to suit this
situation - it was possible to take the girl out of the
gutter, but it was not possible to take the gutter out of
the girl. Higgins tries to cover for Eliza by calling her
unsuitable subject matter and words as a new kind of small
talk.

Soon after this fiasco, Eliza leaves as well as the
other guests. Pickering and Henry are left to revel in
Eliza's performance, while Mrs. Higgins reminds them that
Eliza may be a "triumph of your art (phonetics) and of her
dressmaker's; but if you suppose for a moment that she
doesn't give herself away in every sentence she utters, you
must be perfectly cracked about her" (Shaw, Pygmalion 57).
Mrs. Higgins then echoes a concern brought up by Mrs. Pearce
in the previous act which is what is to become of Eliza, and
furthermore since she has been living with Higgins and
Pickering and, therefore acquiring Henry's bad manners and
habits, she will be disqualified from any job. Yet, her son
and the Colonel seem to pay no heed to her concerns, and
they soon leave.

The final scene in Act III serves as the turning point
for the play. It takes place at an Embassy on a summer
evening just before the six months are up. Eliza will meet

her final test head on. Pickering and Higgins are greeted

28
at the reception by a former pupil of Higgins named
Nepommuck who is there mainly for the purpose of spotting
frauds, like Eliza, among the guests for the host and
hostess. As Nepommuck exits, Eliza joins the two and they
ascend the staircase to meet the host and hostess. Eliza's
entrance creates quite a stir among the guests, and she
makes her way across the room. An excited Nepommuck joins
the professor and his hosts and starts the suspense by
stating, "I have found out all about her. She is a fraud"
(Shaw, Pygmalion 64). Nepommuck continued that she could
not be English because she spoke it too perfectly, as if it
were a foreign language to her. Finally, the suspense
breaks, the turning point occurs, and Henry wins his bet
when Henry's own pupil answers that Eliza is a Hungarian of
royal blood.

Act IV begins in the Wimpole Street laboratory at
midnight as they are arriving home from the ball. The
falling action after Eliza's turning point at the ball is
only a short segment of the play before the climax occurs in
the first scene of the act. As Pickering and Higgins are
"winding down" from the exciting evening and congratulating
themselves on their success, an almost tragic-looking Eliza
enters. She fetches Higgins slippers and listens in on
their conversation that didn't include one word of praise
directly to her. After their discussion, Pickering retires
for the evening as well as Higgins.

Consumed with emotion, Eliza throws herself to the

29
floor as Higgins looks in to inquire about his slippers.
Eliza responds by throwing his slippers at him with all of
her force. Confused by her anger, and amazed by her belief
that she won the bet and he didn't, Higgins enrages Eliza by
-stating that she was nervous about what was to become of
her. At this point, the climax of the entire play occurs as
Eliza lets out a suffocated scream and darts her nails at
his face. Higgins then becomes the dominant force as he
overpowers her and throws her into an easy-chair [i.e. the
stage direction for Eliza: "crushed by superior strength and
weight" (Shaw, Pygmalion 72). An explosion of tension
occurs at this point in the play, sexual tension as well,
and emotionally the play is over when we know that nothing
can happen between the two characters on an intimate level.
Higgins chooses to push her away instead of pulling her
closer.

Yet, the question remains that if she is not going to
stay with Higgins, what is she fit for? Since Higgins never
really listened to the concerns of his mother or Mrs.
Pearce, he finally decides that perhaps Eliza could marry
someone. When Eliza counters that she was better off before
because at least she only sold flowers and not herself,
Higgins believes he has resolved the problem when he says
that Pickering can set her up in a flower shop and he
retires to bed.

Before allowing him to leave, Eliza has the pleasure of

hurting Higgins the way he has hurt her when she inquires

30
which clothes are hers to keep, returns the ring he gave
her, and tells him she won't be doing his errands anymore.

The final act takes place in Mrs. Higgins' drawing
room. A parlor maid enters to tell Mrs. Higgins that her
son and Colonel Pickering are downstairs calling the police.
Mrs. Higgins tells the maid to have Eliza remain upstairs
until she is sent for. Henry then enters announcing that
Eliza is missing. As Mrs. Higgins expresses her concern for
the involvement of the police in this matter, the arrival of
Alfred Doolittle is announced. After being quite surprised
not to find the dustman that they expected, they discover
that Doolittle has been pulled mercilessly into the world of
"middle-class morality" thanks to a friend of Higgins who
left him a small fortune of money in exchange for Doolittle
lecturing on moral reform.

Believing that Eliza can stay with her father due to
his new financial situation, Mrs. Higgins informs the group
that Eliza is upstairs and sends for her. When Eliza comes
into the room she is not the picture of what Henry saw last
night, instead she looks calm and self-possessed. After
refusing to go to Wimpole Street with Pickering and Henry,
Eliza's father re-enters the room, he has come to ask Eliza
to attend his wedding. Eliza agrees to go to the wedding
and goes upstairs to get ready. Mrs. Higgins and Pickering
agree to attend the wedding as well and leave to prepare for
the wedding.

As Eliza is leaving, Higgins has one final discussion

31
with her. He asks her to return to Wimpole Street with him,
but he will not treat her any differently than he has
treated anyone. His manners will not change. So, she will
not find what she wants which she states is
a little kindness...what I did was not for the
dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were
pleasant together and I come - came - to care for
you; not to want you to make love to me, and not
forgetting the difference between us, but more
friendly like. (Shaw, Pygmalion 97)

The options that Eliza is faced with for her future
are: to return to her old life at Tottenham Court Road
selling flowers, return to Wimpole Street as one of "three
old bachelors" with Higgins and Pickering, move into her
father's house, or marry Freddy and provide a life for him
by teaching phonetics. She infuriates and then pleases
Higgins by speaking of teaching phonetics. With her new
found spirit of independence and her stubborn nature, the

audience knows that Eliza is going to be just fine with her

decision to marry Freddy.

 

CHAPTER III
PLOT DEVELOPMENT COMPARISON OF SCREENPLAY

In his Prologue of The Collected Screenplays of Bernard

 

ahaa, Bernard Dukore described an interview which was
published shortly before Bernard Shaw turned ninety. Shaw
had been asked, if he had his time over again would he write
for the screen rather than the stage, and his answer was
very simply a 'yes' (Dukore 1). Dukore explained that by
this time Shaw had a dozen years experience as a
screenwriter, won an Academy Award for the best screenplay
of 1938 (Pygmalion) and apparently saw a future for himself
in the cinema (1). Although the medium of film making as an
art was still rather young, Shaw proved himself to be an
artist who was capable of working successfully in both media
- for the stage and for the screen, but from what theatrical
beginnings did the work of this playwright and screenwriter
emerge?

In the Introduction of Stage to Screen: Theatrical
Method From Garrick to Griffith, A. Nicholas Vardac set up
the period precipitating the emergence of film as an art
form by linking "the birth of the need for the motion
picture" with the scientific, questioning spirit of the 17th
century which flowed into David Garrick's theatrical
attempts in the 18th century "at achieving a greater
pictorial realism in staging" through the use of stagings by
P. J. de Loutherbourg, the proscenium "picture frame," and
modifications in lighting and character interpretation

32

 

33
(xvii).

From the evolution of the realistic reforms of Garrick
on the stage, Vardac set another momentous chronological
landmark for his book in 1915 with the advent of the motion
picture as a "full-fledged and autonomous art form" in the
work of D. W. Griffith's The Birth of §_Né£lgfl (165). The
author explained that although the first screenings of the
Edison-Armat vitascope were in 1895 and 1896, several years
would pass before

"the technique of the camera and the
photoplay achieved its selectivity, its unity
of purpose, its dramatic emphasis, its
interplay of episodes, transition, and
dramatic climax, its aesthetics of pictorial
composition, dynamic and static, in short,
before it attained the status of an art
form." (Vardac 165)

Given the interrelatedness of these two chronological
landmarks for the stage and the screen, how does the work of
the theater compare with that of film?

In An Anatomy of Drama Martin Esslin gave several
similarities and differences that exist between the two
vehicles. Esslin cited that a "basic unity of the dramatic
mode of communication" existed between the theatre and the
mass media of the cinema, television, and radio while noting
the plays that have been filmed, the plays that have been
made from films, television plays have been produced in the
theatre, and television shows that feature films daily (77).

Further evidence of this "basic unity" can be shown through

the "interchange" of artists between the two because there

34
may be differences but they "are merely modifications of one
basic dramatic craft" (Esslin 77 -8).

Most of the similarities and differences between
theatre and the mass media that are described by Esslin
could be put under a heading of control. Depending upon
what role an individual might be put in, i.e. actor or
director or audience member, and considering personal
preferences and feelings about the element of control,
generally more elements of control can be found in the mass
media.

As a director an individual might wish to work in the
mass media because more control can be found within this
vehicle. Esslin mentions in regards to the pre-recorded
media that the director has "infinitely greater scope for
varying the venue of action, much greater flexibility in
structuring it through devices like montage and editing"
(78). Therefore, the director can have even more control by
giving his point of view of the action through his artistic
choices of the camera angles and the use of the microphone.
In other words, "in mechanical media the director's power
over the audience's point of view is total" (Esslin 79).

Meanwhile, the actor may often prefer the excitement of
live theatre over that of film because of the relationship
that can be found with the audience. Esslin stated that the
main asset of stage drama lies in "the feedback from the
audience to the actors" (78).

Other differences mentioned between the two media by

 

35
Esslin were: the lack of mass psychology in media found in
the media which comes into the spectator's home, i.e. the
"infectiousness of laughter," (80); the varying distance
between action and spectator in film but not theatre (81);
and while it is still an event to go to a film or the
theatre, that aspect does not exist in the continuous stream
of information and entertainment that is piped into our
homes daily through television and radio (82).

Of the influences that each medium has had on each
other, Esslin concludes that the mass media has had several
effects upon the theatre. Among them are: the breakdown of
"the rigid well-made play" structure (83); the acceptance of
narration and cinematic techniques, such as cross-cutting
quick scenes (83—4); the creation of a new more
sophisticated and intelligent audience for the theatre (84);
and the nourishing of new creative talent "awakened by radio
and television drama" (84—5). Finally, the theatre has also
had an effect upon the mass media in the way that it may
serve as a "training ground" and be more experimental in
nature because it does not have the same cost and
ionumentally "cumbersome technology" of its dramatic
counterpart (Esslin 84).

Since the plot line of the screenplay is practically
the same from a chronological event-by-event standpoint, the
following description of the plot line will be as brief as
possible giving the major plot actions, and will allow the

changes to be noted in the third and final section of this

36
chapter entitled "Changes in the Screenplay."

The screenplay opens to a summer thunderstorm in
London. Eliza Doolittle and an old woman who are flower
vendors are caught out in the summer rain. After a few
words, the woman takes her basket and hurries off in the
rain. Eliza then follows. Next, a young man, Freddy
Eynsford-Hill, is seen trying to hail a taxi in the downpour
but to no avail.

A group of people are gathered under the portico of a
church in shelter from the sudden rain. Among the group are
Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and her daughter Clara. They are waiting
for Freddy to find them a taxi. When Freddy returns with
the news that he can't find a cab, the two women send him
back out in the rain. As he is running off, he collides
with the flower girl, Liza or Eliza, that we met earlier and
spills her flowers. She yells after him, "Nah then, Freddy:
look wh' y' gowin, deah" (Dukore 227). Freddy's mother,
curious at how such a lowly creature could know her son by
name, approaches the young girl and asks Liza her query.
After finding out that it was just Liza's way of being
friendly by calling everyone Freddy or Charlie, Mrs.
Eynsford-Hill walks off and a gentleman rushes in out of the
rain. Liza, being rather bothersome, tries to get the man,
who is Colonel Pickering, to buy some flowers and instead
gets some change. The members of the crowd warn the girl

against taking the money because a man has been taking down

every word she says. The man turns out to be Professor

37
Henry Higgins who is an expert at phonetics. After showing
off his talents of identifying people's origins by their
dialects, he asserts that he could even change the lowly
creature Liza into a lady by teaching her how to speak
properly. One of the members from the crowd turns out to be
Colonel Pickering who has come to London to meet Higgins.
The two then go off to discuss their shared interests.

After piquing her interest in becoming a lady, the two
gentlemen are surprised to have Liza come visit them to ask
for lessons. After Pickering makes a wager for Higgins to
pass the girl off as a lady, Higgins accepts the venture.
Liza is taken off to be cleaned, and her clothes are burned.
While Liza is being taken care of by Mrs. Pearce, Alfred
Doolittle, Liza's father shows up to blackmail Higgins and
Pickering into giving him money. First outraged by
Doolittle's attempts and then amused, Higgins gives the man
some money for his daughter.

After giving lessons to Liza, Higgins decides to put
her to a test at his mother's house on a day which she has
visitors. The Eynsford-Hill family turns out to be the
guests and they become thoroughly taken and amused by Liza's
inappropriate behavior, for which Higgins covers. Mrs.
Higgins, Henry's mother, points out to her son and the
Colonel after Liza has left, that the girl is not ready to
be presentable.

Some time later Liza is given and passes her final test

at a ball. She creates such a stir that the Host and

38
Hostess of the party have a former pupil of Higgins figure
out her real social origins. The test is passed when the
former pupil declares that the beautiful guest is nothing
less than Hungarian royalty.

After the long evening Higgins, Pickering, and Liza
arrive back home. The two men are delighted with their
recent success and neglect to share their victory and praise
with Liza. Upset by this treatment, Liza makes her anger
known to Higgins, breaks off her ties with the Professor,
and makes plans to leave the house.

As Liza leaves the house, she runs into Freddy who has
fallen deeply in love with her. The two find comfort and
affection in each other an run off together into the night.

The next morning arrives, and Liza has already found
her way to Mrs. Higgins house. Henry arrives at the house
perplexed by Liza's disappearance. He has called the police
and is very surprised to find that Liza has sought refuge at
his mother's house. While waiting for Liza to appear,
Alfred Doolittle shows up in wedding clothes angry that
Higgins has forced him into a life of "middle-class
morality" (Dukore, 264). He has come to invite his daughter
to his wedding.

Liza agrees to go to the wedding, and as everyone is
getting ready to leave, Higgins stops Liza. He asks Liza if
she was ready to come back stating that his manners will not
change because he treats everyone the same way. Liza

refuses to come back to Higgins' house and leaves for her

 

 

39
father's wedding with her new mate Freddy.

Several changes took place when the play was edited to
become the screenplay. Of the changes that shall be noted,
several should come under the heading of "additions." In
other words, the additions were created specifically for the
screenplay and can't be found in the play. The screenplay,
which was mainly an "elaboration of the stage script" went
through at least four revisions (Goodman 313). Shaw had

used the printed version of the script, which he called the

 

book, in creating the basis for the screenplay.

Randolph Goodman in From Script to Stage: Eight
Modern Plays noted in regard to the additions for the
screen, that Shaw

in red ink throughout the script, he made slight
alterations in the dialogue and stage business.
In addition, he wrote, in pencil, about thirty
pages of script, consisting of full-length scenes

as well as suggestions and comments for the
director. Several of the items...are

characteristically Shavian and each is headed
'Note' (Goodman 303).

Of the several scenes which were added to the
screenplay which were said to give the story "greater
fluidity and cinematic quality" (Goodman 313), I did not
consider the scenes to be "added" scenes for the purpose of
my study. The reason why I didn't consider them was because
every single one mentioned was already found in the play's
script and the decision to use or not use these scenes in

the play is irrelevant because the text does exist whether

it is used in common play practice or not. Of the scenes

40
which were mentioned as being "added" to the screenplay
which I did not classify as such were as follows: the taxi
driver taking Eliza home after the opening scene; Eliza
getting a bath by Mrs. Pearce; Eliza's tutoring scene with
Higgins; the Embassy reception (which introduced the former
pupil of Higgins named Nepommuck in the play and screenplay,
which later changed to Count Karpathy in the final screen
version); and one of the three endings of the play which was
shot and used in which Higgins is seated and listening to an
old recording of Eliza's voice and Eliza returns and
finishes the speech after which Higgins gives a final self-
satisfied victory smile, crunches down in his seat, and
pushes his hat over his eyes.

Also, since the flowing nature of the screenplay
Pygmalion does not contain formal divisions such as acts yet
still follows the same events chronologically, the sections
of the screenplay which contain the events of a certain act
are referred to by the structural divisions of a play
despite its own lack of formal division. In other words, in
the interest of discussing the events of the screenplay
section by section, they are discussed by act numbers even
though the formal division does not exist.

In "Act I" of the screenplay there were fourteen
additional lines, a line being a portion of dialogue
occupying a single row in the script, of dialogue spoken by
characters in five different instances. Six of the lines

are from the added scene at the very beginning of the film

41
between Eliza and an old woman. Two added lines of dialogue
soon follow with an extra appearance of Freddy trying to
hail a taxi. The next two lines of added dialogue are

spoken by Higgins mid line in regard to the upstarts who
have to be taught to speak like ladies and gentlemen"
(Dukore 231) instead of mentioning the purely British
references to Kentish Town. Next, Pickering has an
inconsequential added line, and the last added lines of
dialogue in Act I is given to the voices of a boys choir who
are subtly reminding Higgins of his lack of charity through
their music.

The majority of the additions in Act I can be found in
the form of "Notes," as mentioned earlier, and in the form
of setting directions. Seven additions in these two forms
took up approximately three pages of text which were
suggestions or directions from Shaw to the director. Most
of the added text was added to establish the atmosphere of
the opening situation within the first act. Other additions
took the form of describing Higgins and Eliza as characters.
Perhaps the most important note that was added in the
screenplay text can be found in Act I when Shaw voices his
concern for the casting choices of Higgins and Freddy and
tries to remove any possible thoughts on Higgins as a love
interest. Shaw noted

Higgins is not youthful. He is a mature, well
built, impressive, authoritative man of 40 or
thereabouts...It is important that in age and

everything else he should be in strong contrast to
Freddy, who is 20, slim, goodlooking, and very

42
youthful. (The producer should bear in mind from
the beginning that it is Freddy who captivates and
finally carries off Eliza, and that all suggestion
of a love interest between Eliza and Higgins
should be most carefully avoided) (Dukore 226).

In the closing moments of Act I the final additions
show Eliza in her home and, therefore, provide insight into
her personality from her environment or her living
conditions.

In Act II there were eleven additional lines of

dialogue spoken by characters on five different occasions.

 

After the first inconsequential added line by Higgins, a
word substitution takes place when "slum prudery" (Dukore
236) is added in place of the British reference to "Lisson
Grove prudery" (Shaw 23). Shortly thereafter, Higgins has
two added lines when speaking with Mrs. Pearce, who has six,
when they are both referring to the bath that Mrs. Pearce
has just given Eliza. The final added line of dialogue in
Act II comes from Higgins when he is questioning if Alfred
Doolittle should be given a fiver.

Act II also has about a half page of additional notes
and screen description by Shaw. There are eight instances
which total twenty-six additional lines of notes and screen
description in this particular act. The first seven
instances of eighteen lines provide the action of the bath
given to Eliza by Mrs. Pearce and the action leading up to
that point and after that point when Mrs. Pearce sees
Higgins and the Colonel after the "heartrending" experience

(Dukore 240). The final addition in Act II, and perhaps the

43
most important, consists of the note by Shaw regarding the
character of Alfred Doolittle. Shaw notes

The first appearance of Doolittle should be
impressive and threatening. The audience should
have a good look at him as he appears in the
doorway.

A strong point must be made of the change in
his expression from the outraged avenging father
to the irresistibly charming old rascal on the
line 'Well, what would a man come for? Be human,
Governor.‘

After this change, Doolittle should be
thoroughly liked by the audience.

This must be managed by close-ups. At his exit
also a feature must be made of the look at Mrs.
Pearce and the wink at Higgins. (Dukore 241)

Act III was the section of the play which had the least
additions to it by the author. There was only one
additional insignificant line which was spoken by Mrs.
Eynsford-Hill thanking Mrs. Higgins "for a most exciting
afternoon" (Dukore 251).

There were no additional notes or suggested cinematic
action given by Shaw for Act III of his screenplay.

In Act IV a line substitution takes place when Eliza
speaks of what she is now suited for since Higgins'
involvement in her lif’ and her transformation into a lady.
The line "I was above that before you came interfering with
me" (Dukore 260) was added in place of a British reference
in the line "We were above that at the corner of Tottenham
Court Road" (Shaw 74).

Concerning the addition of notes and suggestions for

cinematic action, three separate instances occurred with the

addition of nine total lines. The first two instances

 

44

containing two lines each were brief descriptions of the
location, blocking, and emotional attitude of Eliza after
Higgins exits from their climactic interchange. The final
instance containing additional lines was a note from Shaw
concerning the scene between the infatuated Freddy and Eliza
who is "hungry for comfort" (Dukore 262). The first three
lines show Shaw's directions for Eliza's emotional timbre

for the scene, ...Liza expresses in all her movements her
raging resolution...But her self command is perfect" (Dukore
262). The final two lines are a line substitution in which
Shaw describes the location of the lovelorn Freddy outside
Eliza's window.

In the final act of the screenplay, instead of the
brief interchange between Mrs. Higgins and her son at tie
very end of the play, a whole scene of dialogue and
directions for cinematic action were added. This additional
page and a half of text included a scene between Mrs.
Higgins and her son in which she discusses Eliza's future
with Freddy. The following scene has Freddy thanking
Higgins for agreeing to set up the young lovers in a flower
shop. At the very end of the screenplay Shaw has Higgins
standing at his mother's garden gate remembering while
fading in and out of a vision of the Eliza of the past and
of the future, when a policewoman comes along and breaks
Higgins out of his spell. When asked if anything was wrong,

a happy Higgins replies, "No: nothing wrong. A happy

ending. A happy beginning. Good morning, madam" (Dukore

 

45
272).

The remainder of this chapter will address the dialogue
and directions that can be found in the play Pygmalion but
not in the screenplay or the "deletions". The same
references will be made to the sections of the screenplay's
"acts" despite the lack of these formal divisions. Finally,
Shaw did not add several lines of play dialogue because of
their lack of importance was not great enough to add more

bulk to the screenplay. So, it should be noted that these

 

unimportant deletions will not be discussed so that more
noteworthy omissions and sections of text which have been
deleted may be discussed in greater detail.

In "Act I" of the screenplay the first two instances of
major deletions of sections of dialogue occurred with a
conversation between Mrs. Eynsford-Hill, her daughter, and a
bystander and the second was an enlarged conversation
between Freddy and his mother and sister. Through the first
instance of eleven lines of text a derogatory view of Freddy
is first shared with the audience, i.e. "If Freddy had a bit
of gumption...Other people got cabs. Why couldn't he" (Shaw
3). The second instance of line deletion occurred when
Freddy first arrived back after not finding a cab. The
deletion of these sixteen lines also shows Freddy as
incompetent and whining while deleting some references to
London landmarks that wouldn't make sense to a wider
audience. For example, references to Trafalgar Square,

Charing Cross, and Ludgate Circus were removed. The final

46

major deletion of lines from Act I came in the form of
cinematic directions concerning the lifestyle of Eliza
through describing her home environment. As mentioned
earlier in the "additions" section, a revised section of
text on Eliza's surroundings was included instead.

In the second act of the screenplay the first deletion
occurred with the ten line conversation between Pickering
and Higgins describing more specifics of the science of

'97

phonetics, 1 can pronounce twenty—four distinct vowel

 

sounds; but your hundred and thirty beat me. I can't hear a 1
bit of difference between most of them" (Shaw 18). This may
have been done because it might have confused the audience
with more unnecessary facts.

The next deletion of importance provided insight into the
feisty, independent spirit of Eliza. This instance was a
conversation between Higgins and Eliza when she told him
that her money was good enough for him and scoldingly
remarks that if he were a gentleman he would ask her to sit
down when she was bringing him business. The next major
portion of text to be deleted was a little over a page long
in which Higgins shows his whimsy when he figures out that
Eliza is offering him a proportionally large sum of money to
give her lessons in relation to her average daily income.
The final three deletions of major importance are related to
questions of morality. The first of the three that was not
found in the screenplay was a remark which Pickering made to

Higgins in regard to his unflattering treatment of Eliza

47
when he said, "Youre certainly not going to turn her head
with flattery, Higgins" (Shaw 22). This remark looks below
the dirt and grime for the first time and sees a woman
underneath. The second deletion heads straight for a
question of morality when Pickering asks Higgins very
openly, "Are you a man of good character where women are
concerned" (Shaw 30). The answer to which gives us an
explanation for the lack of interest that Higgins shows for
women when Higgins states
...I find the moment I let a woman make friends
with me, she becomes jealous, exacting,
suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that
the moment I let myself make friends with a woman,
I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset
everything...So here I am, a confirmed old
bachelor, and likely to remain so...teaching would
be impossible unless pupils are sacred...Ive
taught...the best looking women in the world. I'm
seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood.
I might as well be a block of wood... (Shaw 30 ~1)
The final deletion with moral implications comes from a
passage between Pickering, Alfred Doolittle, and Higgins.
Once again Pickering has a question of morality when he asks
Doolittle why he doesn't marry his common-law wife.
Doolittle explains that he would like to but she doesn't
want to because this way he still has to buy her presents
and clothes and further he gives Higgins some advice
regarding his daughter
Take my advice, Governor, marry Eliza while she's
still young and dont (sic) know no better. If you
dont youll (sic) be sorry for it after. If you
do, she'll be sorry for it, after; but better her

than you...(Shaw 39)

Three deletions of importance occur in the third act of

 

48
the screenplay. The first is a interchange between Henry
and Mrs. Higgins when he comes to visit her on her day for
visitors. This section further proves Henry's nature and
gives insight into his relationship with his mother when she
scolds him for visiting. She states "...Go home at
once...I'm serious, Henry. You offend all my friends: they
stop coming whenever they meet you" (Shaw 48).

The second deletion of importance occurs at the end of
the Eynsford-Hills visit. In this section the reference of
Higgins being eligibly attractive in matrimony through the
failed flirtation of Clara Eynsford-Hill. The deletion of
importance can be found in form of a stage direction for
Clara in which Shaw suggests Clara convey that she is one
"[who considers Higgins quite eligible matrimonially]" (Shaw
51). The final deletion in Act III of the screenplay can be
found in the section of dialogue that takes place right
after Eliza makes her dramatic exit from her first test as a
lady. It is throughout this section that Shaw skillfully
entertains the topic of what is politically correct behavior
within the different social classes. Mrs. Eynsford-Hill has
been convinced by Henry that the shocking language used by
Eliza is just the "new small talk" and she admits to being
unable to get used to the new ways. Clara shows her
transparent desire to be in vogue when she responds to
Henry's temptations to use the new shocking language.

Act IV did not contain any major deletions from the

text of the play.

49

The final act of the screenplay Pygmalion contains two
major deletions of text from the play. The first deletion
of importance was the second major speech of Alfred
Doolittle in Act V. Through this speech we see a man who
has been caught in the trap of "middle-class morality," is
unhappy about this new situation, and yet he doesn't have
the guts to go back to the lifestyle of being among the
"undeserving poor." Doolittle describes his situation in

the deleted section as so

...It's easy to say chuck it; but I havnt the
nerve...If I was one of the deserving poor, and
had put by a bit, I could chuck it; but then why
should I, acause the deserving poor might as well
be millionaries for all the happiness they ever
has. They dont know what happiness is. But I, as
one of the undeserving poor, have nothing between
me and the pauper's uniform but this here blasted
four thousand a year that shoves me into the
middle class... (Shaw 85)

The final deletion of the text is perhaps the longest
deletion from the script at almost four pages in length. In
this section the final remnants of a possible relationship
between Higgins and Eliza ever existing is deftly removed
from the text. A softer side of Higgins is shown for ever
so briefly a moment after he requests that Eliza stay with
Pickering and himself at Wimpole Street, "...I shall miss
you, E1iza...I have learnt something from your idiotic
notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I have
grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them

rather" (Shaw 94).

CHAPTER IV
COMPARISON OF CHARACTERS

In the book The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in
the Creativa Interpretations of Haman,Motivea Lajos Egri,
the author, provides a very clear interpretation of the
different elements that make up the "bone structure" of
character. He illustrates the depth of a well-developed
character by comparing just as any object has three
dimensions (depth, height, and width), humans have an
additional three of physiology, sociology, and psychology
(Egri 33). Physiology, or our physical make-up, can
influence a character in many ways such as "helping to make
us more tolerant, defiant, humble, or arrogant. It affects
our mental development, serves as a basis for inferiority
and superiority complexes" (Egri 33).

Meanwhile, sociology as the second dimension of a human
being concerns the many surrounding factors outside the
human that are effecting it and may include such factors as
home environment, who and what the character's parents were
like, and what the subject's education, or lack thereof,
played in upbringing the individual (Egri 33). In other
words, while the first aspect determining dimensionality
could be categorized under nature, the second one could be
categorized under nurture.

The third and final aspect of character dimensionality
is the offspring of the two other dimensions and it is
psychology. "Their combined influence gives life to

50

 

51
ambition, frustration, temperament, attitudes, complexes"
(Egri 34).

Mr. Egri also provided a more in-depth "step-by-step
outline of how a tridimensional-character bone structure
should look" (36). Under the first heading of "Physiology,"
he noted eight determining factors which are of a physical
nature. Among them are: sex; age; height and weight; color
of hair, eyes, skin; posture; appearance; defects; and
heredity (36). Under the second heading of "Sociology," he
noted nine determining factors which are of an environmental
factor. Among them are: class; occupation; education; home
life; religion; race, nationality; place in the community;
political affiliations; and amusements, hobbies. Under the
final heading of "Psychology," he noted 10 determining
factors which are of a psychological nature. Among them
are: sex life, moral standards; personal premise, ambition;
frustrations, chief disappointments; temperament; attitude
toward life; complexes; extrovert, introvert, or ambivert;
abilities; qualities; and I.Q (37).

Mr. Egri provided further insight into several other
existing elements which a well-developed character needs in
order to flourish. Those mentioned will be character
growth, strength of will, the pivotal character, and the
unity of opposites.

Defined by the author, "Growth is a character's
reaction to a conflict in which he is involved. A character

can grow through making the correct move, as well as the

 

52
incorrect one - but he must grow, if he is a real character.
In regards to the essence of change, Egri states

The only thing that one really knows about human
nature is that it changes. Change is the one
quality we can predicate of it. The systems that
fail are those that rely on the permanency of
human nature, and not its growth or
development...Regardless of the medium in which
you are working, you must know your characters
thoroughly. And you must know them not only as
they are today, but as they will be tomorrow or
years from now. (59-60)

The strength of will in a character was another section

in which Egri gave insight into the dramatic workings of a

 

character. Of will he explains

A weak character cannot carry the burden of
contracted conflict in a play. He cannot support
a play. We are forced, then, to discard such a
character as a protagonist. There is no sport if
there is no competition; there is no play if there
is no conflict. Without counterpoint there is no
harmony. The dramatist needs not only characters
who are willing to put up a fight for their
convictions. He needs characters who have the
strength, the stamina to carry this fight to its
logical conclusion. (75)

The pivotal character was also discussed in regards to
its function in the overall framework of character
construction. Considered to be the protagonist, the pivotal
character is "the one who creates conflict and makes the
play move forward. The pivotal character knows what he
wants. Without him the story flounders...in fact, there is
no story...A pivotal character must not merely desire
something. He must want it so badly that he will destroy or
be destroyed in the effort to attain his goal" (Egri 104).

Finally, Mr. Egri described a term or phrase called the

53
"unity of opposites." Often misunderstood, this term does
not refer to "opposing forces or wills in a clash...The real
unity of opposites is one in which compromise is impossible"
(115).

The only addition or deletion of characters that were
noted within the two texts that were used for this study was
the addition of an "Old Woman" to the first opening moments
in Act I. This character has only three lines of text and
will be mentioned briefly in the final section of this
chapter.

Other than the addition just mentioned, the overall
effects that the major deletions found in the screenplay had
upon character were to make some characters less complex and
to remove the possibility of some relationships. The
additions that could be found throughout the text, mainly
those headed "Note," seemed to mainly clarify the
playwright's intentions on control of the characters.

Considered by this researcher to be the most well-
developed of Shaw's characters in the Pygmalion screenplay
and play text, Henry Higgins is a character which seems to
take on a life of his own in the script. The only major,
noteworthy change that was found within the text of the
screenplay regarding the character of Professor Henry
Higgins is the removal of the question of a possible
romantic relationship between Higgins and his pupil Eliza.

In the Introduction of The Collacted Screenplays of

Bernard Shag by Bernard F. Dukore, Dukore states of the

 

 

54
removal of the romantic relationship

...he removes virtually every suggestion of
Higgins's possible romantic interest in Liza, for
such suggestions, because they keep the
possibility in the air, may seem to refute
subsequent denials. Shaw retains Higgins's
statement that he is a confirmed bachelor. He
deletes Pickering's insistence that Higgins must
not take advantage of Liza, Doolittle's advice
that Higgins marry her, and Higgins's confession
to Liza: 'You never asked yourself, I suppose,
whether I could do without you...I have grown
accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like
them, rather...’ (Dukore 71 - 2)

Further, Dukore asserts of the addition of "explicit
statements" from the screenwriter to clarify the
relationships between Freddy and Eliza vs. the relationship
between Higgins and Eliza

Although the play Pygmalion raises the question of
romance between Liza and Higgins only to reject
such a notion and to stress its irrelevance, the
screenplay goes further to deny it. While the
play dramatizes neither scenes of wooing nor of
flirtation between them, and while it ends with
Higgins acknowledgement that she will marry
Freddy, generations of actors, audiences, an
readers...steadfastly deny the play’s denial of
romance between professor and pupil...In the
screenplay...explicit statements that create
different theatrical and cinematic expectations -
that Higgins and Freddy contrast each other in age
(forty vs. twenty) and appearance (not youthful
vs. very youthful and handsome) - and tell the
director and screenplay reader...any suggestion of
romance between Liza and Higgins 'should be most
carefully avoided'... (70 - 1)

Other than the meticulous deletion of the possible
romantic relationship between Eliza and Higgins, the
character of Higgins is very well-developed. In regard to
the "bone structure" discussed by Mr. Egri previously,

readers of Pygmalion are able to answer many of the

 

55
questions pertaining to the physiology, sociology, and
psychology of Higgins. It is possible to construct a very
clear picture of this pivotal character and understand his
motivations throughout. It is possible to see Higgins as
the intellectual giant in his field, but as emotionally and
socially he is more on the level of an insect. A confirmed
bachelor who has a disturbing attachment to his mother, and
who, otherwise, is sexually a eunuch. In short, a whining,
moaning, bullying child.

From "draggle-tailed guttersnipe" to "duchess, Eliza
Doolittle serves as a major element of interest in Pygmalion
due to her transformation and "the social themes that derive
in part from her metamorphosis" (Dukore 70).

A clearly motivated character Eliza wants more than
anything at the beginning of the story to rise above her
social class in life or, as she would put it

I want to be a lady in a flower shop. But they
wont take me unless I can talk more genteel. He
said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to
pay him - not asking any favor - and he treats me
zif I was dirt. (Dukore 235)

At the end of the story, after the transformation into
a lady has taken place, the enlightened Eliza informs her
teacher of her new desires

I dont care how you treat me. I dont mind your
swearing at me. I shouldnt mind a black eye: Ive
had one before this. But [standing up and facing
him] I wont be passed over (Dukore 270)

The "new" Eliza is one who is still fiercely

independent, yet who has changed because she now recognizes

 

56
her own self worth, no thanks to the dehumanizing insults
slung at her by her teacher, but thanks to her friendship
with his colleague Colonel Pickering. Guttersnipe no
longer, the transformation into a lady is now truly complete
when Eliza recognizes this self respect.

Through the craftsmanship of Shaw, the transfixing
evolution or growth of Eliza lends to the plausibility of
h character already clearly defined by the strong "bone
structure" created by the author. Eliza is not a weak
character who will lie down and let herself "be passed
over." She is strong enough in her will and desires to play
opposite of Higgins in which a powerful "unity of opposites"
may be played out to its logical conclusion. Therefore,
since a compromise is impossible in the way that Eliza will
not find what she needs from a personal relationship from
Higgins, and he will not change to give it to her, the death
of the relationship or the separation of the two at the end
is the only logical conclusion.

Pickering, serving as a foil for both Higgins and Mr.
Doolittle, shows the audience how he can be more of a
fatherly figure to Eliza than her own father and how he can
teach Eliza more about being a lady than her professor, as
Eliza says

...I owe so much to you that I should be very
unhappy if you forgot me...But it was from you

that I learnt really nice manners; and that is
what makes one a lady, isn't it? (Dukore 267)

 

57

If one character had to be chosen as the mouthpiece of
the author, Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle, would be the
closest choice throughout the play and screenplay (although
in the screenplay his role was reduced somewhat). His
charming yet roguelike appearance in the story cleverly
moves along the socialist theme of the removal of social
barriers between classes through educational and economic

equality. Moving from being among the "undeserving poor" to

"a victim of middle-class morality," Mr. Doolittle came

 

"closest to uttering Shaw's ideas in the form of a parody"
(Goodman 302).

Henry's mother, Mrs. Higgins, is the loving mother whom
Henry idolizes among other women, especially young. This is
a topic which is brought up by his mother, "Well, you never
fall in love with anyone under forty-five. When will you
discover there are some rather nice-looking young women
about?" (Dukore 247). Higgins only replies,

Oh, I cant be bothered with young women. My idea
of a lovable woman is somebody as like you as
possible. I shall never get into the way of
seriously liking young women: some habits lie too
deep to be changed. (Dukore 247)

So, in a sense, she is the one who creates the lack of
romantic interest on behalf of Henry towards Eliza. In
effect she has "crippled her son emotionally...but she would
be shocked to learn that her image stands between her son
and his sexual freedom" (Goodman 302).

Freddy Eynsford-Hill, considered by this observer to be

the weak link in the chain of Shaw's characters, serves as

58

the romantic love interest for the elegant and attractive
Eliza. The reason for the weak link is because Freddy is
not given enough time on stage in presence or in
conversation to be developed as a character who is worthy of
Eliza's hand. We see Freddy become infatuated with Eliza at
Mrs. Higgins home in Act III, but the next time we see
Freddy is after the climactic moment between Eliza and
Higgins after the evening reception in Act IV. Also, what
little information is known about the young man is that he
is a bumbling, infatuated idiot who can't possibly provide
for Eliza's elevated social status. Freddy, along with his
mother and his sister, is among the "financially and
socially impoverished" (Goodman 302). Although Shaw made it
very clear on several occasions that Freddy is the one who
sweeps Eliza off her feet in the end, Shaw was either
selfishly hoarding all of Eliza's precious stage and screen
time on a character that was already well-developed -
Higgins, or he mistakenly believed that he had provided
enough of a relationship between Eliza and Freddy to be
palpable. Nevertheless, a clearly satisfying relationship,
to the audience, is never established between Eliza and
Freddy.

Despite the weak presence of Freddy, Randolph Goodman
best summed up the effectiveness of Shaw's characterization,

...Pygmalion differs from most of Shaw's plays in
that each person depicted is carefully

individualized and complexly motivated. Not one
is a puppet nor a mere spokesman for the

 

59

playwright, but each plays his part strongly in a
clear conflict of wills. (302)

 

CONCLUSIONS

Looking at the resulting screenplay of Pygmalrpa (1938)
of which was based upon the play (1912), the changes that
Shaw made through the text's plot development and characters
to accommodate the cinematic version effected the overall
dramatic concept in several ways.

First, the traces of a romantic love interest which
were found within the play were not found in the screenplay.
Shaw deleted almost all of the text which raised the
question of a possible romantic entanglement, and further he
added actual notes within the directions of the screenplay
that answered any questions that producers or directors
might have had on this matter of the heart.

Second, Shaw cut a lot of lines from the play in
general, but most of the lines that he did out were to

reduce the amount of unnecessary expository material and

material that was repetitive. Bernard Dukore addressed this

matter as such,
What is less dramatically essential or depicted
elsewhere, he removes; for instance, the
similarity between Higgins and Doolittle, Higgins
dependence on Liza, and his lecture on the
difference between life at his flat and life in
the gutter. (73-74)

Also, a clear attempt was made to reduce the number of
regionalized references with a larger world audience in
mind.

Third, Shaw had also cut dialogue from the screenplay

whose purpose had been on stage to allow time for costume

60

 

61
changes and make-up changes which were no longer necessary
thanks to the magical art of film editing. An example of
this would have been the scene which was occurring while
Eliza was taking her bath and preparing to make her first
step in her transformation. In the screenplay the
conversation that Higgins and Pickering and later Mrs.
Pearce had was not necessary for screen time.

So, overall with the majority of the changes being in
the area of deletions from the play script, the major plot
action in the cinematic version had no choice but to move
along much faster than its stage predecessor.

Dukore summed up the main element of the difference
between the characters found in the play and of those found
in the screenplay in regards to achieving their desires as

SO

More appropriate to the spirit of comedy is the
end of the screenplay, for in it and not in the
stage play, all the principals clearly get what
they want. Freddy gets Liza, Liza gets a flower
shop and a man who will not bully her. Higgins
gets Liza's unromantic, egalitarian-based
comradeship. Although Doolittle, as in the play
laments his fate, it is difficult to feel sorry
for so jolly a character whose material situation
has appreciably improved. (72)

So, finally how does this all measure up in the end?
Was the spirit of the story of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion a
successful move from stage to screen?

My decision is in agreement with Frank Shelley who

wrote in his book Stage and Screen this criticism of the

screenplay

 

62

...the real trouble with Pygmalion was the fact
that Shaw's symphonic, Mozartian, or rather
Haydnesque dialogue had to be sacrificed to a
considerable extent in order to comply with the
rhythm of those successive shots that make up a
scene on the screen. For no play which depends
for its effect mainly on its dialogue is suitable
in the least for filming. In other words, all
good plays resent being filmed, because they are
inspired not only with a sense of drama, but also
with a sense of the theatre - of its static scene
and its dynamic response. The screen cannot
indulge in either of these. (35)

B I BL I OGRAPHY

B I BL I OGRAPHY

Bowman, Walter Parker and Robert Hamilton Ball. Tpaapra
Language: A Dictioaary of Terma in Engliah of the
Drama and Stage From Medieyal to Modern Times. New
York: Theatre Arts Books, 1961.

Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology. New York:
Cromwell, 1959.

Dukore, Bernard F., ed. The Collected Screenplays of
Bernard Shay. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1980.

 

Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the
Creative Interpretarion of Human Emotions. New York:
Simon, 1946.

Esslin, Martin. An Anatomy of Drama. New York: Hill,
1976.

Gassner, John. Masters of the Drama. New York: Random,
1940.

Gassner, John and Edward Quinn, eds. The Reader's
Encyclopedia of World Drama. New York: Cromwell, 1969.

Goodman, Randolph. From Script to Stage: Eight Modern
Plays. New York: Rinehart, 1971.

Hartnoll, Phyllis, ed. The Conciae Oxford Companion to
Theatre. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1972.

Holroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw: Volume I, 1856-1898, The
Search for Love. 3 Vols. New York: Vintage, 1988.

---. Bernard Shaw: Volume II, 1898-1918, The Pursuit of
Power. 3 Vols. New York: Random, 1989.

Huggett, Richard. The Truth About Pygmalion. New York:
Random, 1969.

Laurence, Dan H., ed. Berpard Shaw: Collected Letters
(1911-1925). New York: Viking, 1985.

Marx, Milton. The Enjoyment of Drama. New York: Appleton,
1961.

63

 

 

 

64

Miller, J. Hillis. Veraions of Pygmalion. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1990.

Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion. 1916. New York: WSP of
Pocket Books-Simon, 1973.

Shelley, Frank. Stage aad Screen. Film Quarterly Series 1.
London: Pendulum, n.d.

Vardac, A. Nicholas. Stage to Screen: Thaatrical Method
From Garrick to Griffith. New York: Blom, 1968.