Pygmalion

15 May-03 Mar ,

Theatre

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Not every transformation is a happy one

First published on 23 Sep 2011. Updated on 15 May 2012.

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Sydney Theatre Company set out to strip Pygmalion of the frilliness we associate with the movie and musical versions of the play. “Blowing the dust off” was the mantra.

But from the moment this 21st-century Eliza Doolittle steps out of an upstage door into the black, bare, enormous void of the Sydney Theatre stage, it’s clear they’ve not just blown the dust off – they’ve blowtorched it off. With hardly any scenery to speak of – a couple of television monitors and a laptop represent Higgins’s entire laboratory, a chaise lounge stands in for his mother’s apartment – this is an X-ray version of Pygmalion as we know it.

Andrea Demetriades’s Eliza is, as it should be, the chief delight of the production, and Pygmalion is a fine showcase of her powers as an actress. She unearths a street rat grittiness to her Cockney flower girl, hissing threateningly from a crevice in the wall like a feral animal. But she’s equally at ease – radiant actually – as the small-talking society lady, in a brief opportunity to show her comedic skills: with all else that’s been stripped off the play, it’s a relief that much of the humour is still intact. (If anything, director Peter Evans unwittingly whisks Pygmalion back into the histrionic realm of musical theatre.)

Unfortunately, what chemistry might have existed between Demetriades’s Eliza and Marco Chiappi’s rubbery Henry Higgins seems to have been lost in the abyss of the Sydney Theatre. It’s a rarity to witness, in a gigantic theatre like this 896-seater, a scene that requires such concentrated, intense emotional intimacy as Higgins and Eliza’s final showdown. The uncommonness of that itself is interesting – to a point. Ultimately, though, the sheer volume of the space overwhelms the action, and Shaw’s volley of words starts to feel like an indoor tennis match, and about as emotionally engaging.

For a play that’s so fundamentally about langauge, the production is at its most eloquent when it slips into silence. The second half of the show begins with the crystallisation of a beautiful and profound image – but, again, it’s telling that the moment needs to be broadcast on a large projector screen to reach the audience.

In a venue where emotional nuances are more visible to the naked eye, this Pygmalion might have at least had a shot. But in the end, the coldness and emptiness of the stage – whatever resonances it has within the play – sadly ends up feeling like a metaphor for the production itself.

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Words by Darryn Kin | Photos by Brett Boardman