Pygmalion

ACT 1

After the opera, Mrs.Eynsford Hill and her daughter, Clara, are guarding themselves outside Covent Garden Opera House against the rain. They are waiting for Freddy, tile son of Mrs. Eynsford Hill, who has gone to look for a cab. A flower girl called Eliza Doolittle tries to sell them flowers and later talks to a gentleman who is also standing there. Another man takes down her conversation in a notebook and for that reason the girl is afraid that he is a police officer who will report her. Therefore the flower girl starts to cry and make a scene, but finally it turns out that the man, who has taken her words down, is Professor Higgins, a famous authority on Cockney dialects and a great phonetician. The other man turns out to be Colonel Pickering, an authority on Indian dialects. Both are glad to meet each other and before the two men leave together, Higgins throws down some money into the girl's flower basket. Then, the flower girl takes a taxi and drives home.

ACT 2

The action of this act is set in Higgins' laboratory in Wimpole Street. Higgins shows Pickering all his utensils. Suddenly Mrs Pearce, his housekeeper, announces that a young woman wants to speak to Prof Higgins. lt is Eliza, who had heard Higgins boasting the previons night that he could teach anyone to speek correctly and who now wants to get some lessons.

Higgins and Pickering are interested in the experiment and Pickering tells Higgins that he will pay the expenses of the teaching if he cannot turn Eiiza into a lady within six months. Higgins accepts the bet and Eliza is given her first bath and new clothes by the housekeeper.

Alfred Doolittle, a dustman and Liza's father; comes to get some money frorn Higgins.

Finally, Mr. Doolittle, who is glad to be rid of his daughter, is given five pounds.

ACT 3

Mrs. Higgins, the mother of Prof. Higgins, is expecting some guests in the afternoon. Before the first guests arrive, Henry tells his mother that Eliza will be corning for her first try-out in Society. After Mrs. Eynsford Hill and her two kids as well as Colonel Pickering have arrived, Liza comes. She appears very beautiful and only shows good manners. Her conversation, however, is not ladylike at all. She uses a lot of swear words, but the young people, Clara and Freddy, think that this is the latest slang. (Besides, Freddy falls for Eliza.) After the guests have left, Mrs. Higgins warns her son and Colonel Pickering to be careful because the problem what to do with Eliza after the experiment will certanly turn up, but neither Henry nor Pickering believes that. Later, at an Embassy reception, Liza creates a sensation and even an interpreter, who once was a pupil of Higgins, thinks that she is a foreign princess because her English is too good to be that of an English person.

ACT 4

After they have returned from the Party, Higgins and Pickering are very delighted with Liza's success and they discuss her as if she was only an object Liza, however, is deeply hurt by Higgins' behaviour. She starts to quarrel with hirn and after a violent scene with him she leaves the house. Outside the house she meets Freddy, who has been standing lovesick under her window, and drives round all night in a taxi with him.

ACT 5

After having realized that Liza left, Higgins and Pickering, who are very desperate because they know now that they need her, visit Mrs. Higgins. Mr. Doolittle also turns up. But he has changed a lot. He is dressed up very smartly now and accuses Henry of being the cause of this change. Mr. Doolittle is now a rich man, because Higgins wrote to an American reformer, as a joke, that the most original moralist in England was Alfred Doolittle. This American now left Doolittle four thousand a year on condition that he lectures up to six times a year for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League. Doolittle, however, isn't that glad about being rich because he is now pestered by his relatives all the time. Moreover Mr. Doolittle says that he is going to marry. Finally, Mrs. Higgins informs them that Liza is in her flat, but also scolds her son and Pickering for having treated the girl so heartlessly. Liza appears afterwards, but soon starts to quarrel with Higgins again. Liza is fond of Higgins but he is a confirmed bachelor. However, she announces that she is going to marry Freddy at the end of the play.

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