Pygmalion

Shaw's magnificent comedy, a 1913 stage smash, was never better served than here, with Howard and Hiller perfectly matched as thoroughly mismatched lovers. Howard is Henry Higgins, a wealthy phonetics professor who encounters Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Hiller) and bets his friend Col. Pickering (Sunderland) that he can transform the uncouth and thick-accented woman ("a squashed cabbage leaf," he calls her) into a grand lady within three months. Eliza's hilarious lessons include speaking with marbles in her mouth to perfect her elocution. (When she swallows one, Higgins calmly notes, "That's all right. We have plenty more.") Eliza turns out to be a huge su...