Pygmalion Minds The Gap

Tom Beyer as Colonel Pickering, Chris Chiampa as Henry Higgins, and Jaclyn Johnson as Eliza Doolittle in Flat Earth Theatre's production of Pygmalion. Photo credit: Jake Scaltreto
 
Sorry folks, Eliza Doolittle, the cockney flower seller who Professor Henry Higgins bet he could turn into a proper English-speaking woman, does not, in fact, marry the professor as some may have hoped; instead, she marries the more minor character, but still aristocratic, Freddy Eynsford Hill, according to The Boston Globe.
 
Apparently, after George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion, the play in which Doolittle originated, not the perhaps more famous version, My Fair Lady, Shaw anticipated that audiences would want the romantic tension to come to fruition. So he wrote a postscript essay baring the truth of Eliza's romantic life, which does not involve Higgins.
 
Director Devon Jones took this thematic thread and wove it into Flat Earth Theatre's production of Pygmalion, set in the London Underground and overseen by a totalitarian police state. The production ponders the themes of inequality in this multicultural society, bringing new meaning to "mind the gap." 
 
The play ranges from one tube station to the next, including Covent Garden, Bond Street, Pimlico, King's Cross St. Pancras, and Waterloo. Allison Olivia Choat kept the set design simple, original, and accurate: two heavy wooden benches, a map of London Underground painted on the floor, and a red-white-and-blue Underground symbol.  
 
The production also featured the talents of lighting designer Chris Bocchiaro, costume designer Cara Chiaramonte, and sound designer Kyle Lampe.
 
For the full article, visit The Boston Globe.