What a Piece of Work Is a Man

Pygmalion is essentially a comedy of manners. Those seem a little out of date in today's world, but they make for some great plays.

It also might be a difficult play to pull off in China. Chinese people understand the class system since they have had their own for thousands of years. But taking an uneducated peasant woman off the streets and making her refined and cultured might be a tough sell. It would be one thing if Henry Higgins gave Eliza a lot of money or she started a business and got rich. I have never met a Chinese person who did not believe that instant money would bring instant happiness. But taking Eliza out of the lower class simply by convincing her that she could be upper class might not make sense to people who have always been told to keep their place.

After two weeks of studying the play, and a few rehearsals here and there, we are almost ready to raise the curtain. We have a dress rehearsal at the actual theater and then it is show time. I have not seen the space yet, so I'm curious how small it is. I am not expecting the Gershwin Theatre, but it is amazing how small some of these places are. I went to a show about a year ago that was in a theater the size of an apartment living room. I'm hoping we will have a little more room than that.