Pygmalion
Image: Photo: Bob Seary
The New Theatre brings George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion to the stage in Sydney this week.
The play tells the story of aspirational young flower seller Eliza Doolittle, who is looking for an opportunity to escape from her lot in life. Linguistics Professor Henry Higgins, famously wealthy and brash, seemed like just the ticket.
Director Deborah Mullhall says she hopes to reinterpret Bernard Shaw’s original work and present a more gritty version than the beloved musical adaptation of the work My Fair Lady.
“I always keep telling myself, Dickens not Disney,” she says.
The set and costume design of the production will embrace the aesthetic of steampunk, a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates elements of style and technology from the 1800s.
“It’s a pseudo-Victorian melange of ideas and notions and possibilities. The idea of steampunk begins with an idea of ‘what if?’ and it continues with a question of ‘how might?’” Mullhall explains.
“What if the world didn’t move on from steam? How might we then construct a world with what we’ve got, with things that are powered by steam.”
The creative team chose the steampunk aesthetic as a way to explore class divisions and themes of independence from the story in a visual way.
“What really hooked me is the idea that you wear your living, they all have these tool belts which have tools from their trade or things they use in their everyday life,” she says.
Mullhall thinks that the themes of class from the classic story will translate well and are just as relevant for a modern audience.
“What makes a classic a classic is that it is still relevant all these years later.”
Until May 25. The New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown. $20-$35+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.newtheatre.org.au
By Allison Hore
