George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

I wish to boast that Pygmalion has been an extremely successful play all over Europe and North America as well as at home. It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else.

Finally, and for the encouragement of people troubled with accents that cut them off from all high employment, I may add that the change wrought by Professor Higgins in the flower girl is neither impossible nor uncommon. The modern concierge’s daughter who fulfils her ambition by playing the Queen of Spain in Ruy Blas [179] The valet who passes as a nobleman in Victor Hugo’s 1838 verse drama of the same name. at the Theatre Francais is only one of many thousands of men and women who have sloughed off their native dialects and acquired a new tongue. But the thing has to be done scientifically, or the last state of the aspirant may be worse than the first. An honest and natural slum dialect is more tolerable than the attempt of a phonetically untaught person to imitate the vulgar dialect of the golf club; and I am sorry to say that in spite of the efforts of our Academy of Dramatic Art, there is still too much sham golfing English on our stage, and too little of the noble English of Forbes Robertson.

Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians running for shelter into the market and under the portico of St. Paul’s Church, {46} 46 2 (p. 367) St. Paul’s Church: In later editions Shaw specified, “Not Wren’s cathedral but Inigo Jones’ church.” Inigo Jones (1573-1652) and Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) were renowned English architects. Jones restored Saint Paul’s Church in 1634; Wren designed the new Saint Paul’s Cathedral after it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. where there are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which he is writing busily.

The church clock strikes the first quarter.

THE DAUGHTER [in the space between the central pillars, close to the one on her left ] I’m getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be doing all this time? Hes been gone twenty minutes.

THE MOTHER [on her daughter’s right] Not so long. But he ought to have got us a cab by this.

A BYSTANDER [on the lady’s right ] He wont get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their theatre fares.

THE MOTHER But we must have a cab. We cant stand here until half-past eleven. It’s too bad.

THE BYSTANDER Well, it aint my fault, missus.

THE DAUGHTER If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got one at the theatre door.

THE MOTHER What could he have done, poor boy?

THE DAUGHTER Other people got cabs. Why couldnt he?

FREDDY rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street side, and comes between them closing a dripping umbrella. He is a young man of twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the ankles.

THE DAUGHTER Well, havnt you got a cab?

FREDDY Theres not one to be had for love or money.

THE MOTHER Oh, Freddy, there must be one. You cant have tried.

THE DAUGHTER It’s too tiresome. Do you expect us to go and get one ourselves?

FREDDY I tell you theyre all engaged. The rain was so sudden: nobody was prepared; and everybody had to take a cab. Ive been to Charing Cross one way and nearly to Ludgate Circus the other; and they were all engaged.

THE MOTHER Did you try Trafalgar Square?

FREDDY There wasnt one at Trafalgar Square.

THE DAUGHTER Did you try?

FREDDY I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect me to walk to Hammersmith?

THE DAUGHTER You havnt tried at all.

THE MOTHER You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and dont come back until you have found a cab.

FREDDY I shall simply get soaked for nothing.

THE DAUGHTER And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in this draught, with next to nothing on. You selfish pig —

FREDDY Oh, very well: I’ll go, I’ll go. [He opens his umbrella and dashes off Strandwards, but comes into collision with a flower girl, who is hurrying in for shelter, knocking her basket out of her hands. A blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder, orchestrates the incident].

THE FLOWER GIRL Nah then, Freddy: look wh’ y’ gowin, deah.

FREDDY Sorry [he rushes off ] .

THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket] Theres menners f’ yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. [180] That is, “Two bunches of violets trod in the mud.” [She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady’s right. She is not at all an attractive person. [181] Shaw later revised this phrase to “a romantic figure.” She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist].

THE MOTHER How do you know that my son’s name is Freddy, pray?

THE FLOWER GIRL Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e?Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f‘them? {47} 47 3 (p. 369) “Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal,fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel‘s, flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin.Will ye-oo py me f ’them”: That is, “Oh, he’s your son, is he? Well, if you’d done your duty by him as a mother should, he’d know better than to spoil a poor girl’s flowers and then run away without paying. Will you pay me for them?” [Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London. ]

THE DAUGHTER Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!

THE MOTHER Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies?

THE DAUGHTER No. I’ve nothing smaller than sixpence.

THE FLOWER GIRL [ hopefully ] I can give you change for a tanner, [182] Sixpence coin (slang). kind lady.

THE MOTHER [to CLARA] Give it to me. [CLARA parts reluctantly ] . Now [to the girl] this is for your flowers.

THE FLOWER GIRL Thank you kindly, lady.

THE DAUGHTER Make her give you the change. These things are only a penny a bunch.

THE MOTHER Do hold your tongue, Clara. [To the girl ] You can keep the change.

THE FLOWER GIRL Oh, thank you, lady.

THE MOTHER Now tell me how you know that young gentleman’s name.

THE FLOWER GIRL I didnt.

THE MOTHER I heard you call him by it. Dont try to deceive me.