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I caught bits and pieces of XM Satellite Radio’s “TalkBack” show this weekend with Jefferson Mays and Boyd Gaines, currently playing Henry Higgins and Col. Pickering in the Roundabout’s revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
I wish there was a link I could post to the show (UPDATE: See link in comment section!!) , which was recorded live after a performance, during which the actors fielded questions from audience members, but, alas, there is not. Mr. Mays and Mr. Gaines were amazingly articulate, despite Roundabout’s Ted Sod hijacking the first quarter of the show with his dramaturgical rant on the [complete] history of Pygmalion.
Highlights:
When asked by an audience member if it was difficult to play such a heartless and unfeeling character as Henry Higgins (I’m paraphrasing), Mr. Mays responded that he didn’t view Higgins that way. Higgins to him was simply so passionate about his work that he was blinded to anything else. In Mr. Mays’ words, Higgins is a “mono-myopic megalomaniac.” I mean, who can think of something like that on the spot…?
One of the actors (I forget which) told a story about how acting in another Shaw play had gotten him out of jury duty. The judge, seeing that he had listed “actor” as his profession, asked if he’d ever been in a courtroom drama. He responded that, yes, he had been in GBS’s Saint Joan. “What was the verdict in the play?” the judge asked. “We burned her at the stake, your honor.” He was promptly relieved of his civic duty for that day.
The other thing that I found humorous was the great proportion of the discussion that was consumed by saying “Pygmalion is not My Fair Lady” in about a zillion different ways, and then listening to the actors answer a zillion more questions in which audience members either complained that there should have been something in the playbill warning that this was not My Fair Lady without music, or asking why they cut “The Rain in Spain,” from this production.
I guess these sorts of forums are all about educating audiences, but from what I heard, there is still some work to be done…
From what I can gather from XM’s not terribly helpful website, the show will repeat this Saturday at 11 am Eastern Time. If you have XM, look for it. It was really a fascinating show.
Tickets to Pygmalion
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Eric, Sounds like I missed a great interview. It blows me away how even some of the critics didn’t “get” that Pygmalion is NOT “My Fair Lady.”
http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/talkback/index.htm
[…] we were filing out of Pygmalion (review coming soon), further proving the need to continue educating audiences, “Oy! There was so much to listen to. I just couldn’t do it. I needed the […]