Pygmalion
(George Bernard Shaw)

Professor Henry Higgins, who studies phonetics, is waiting out the rain under the portico at Saint Paul’s Church and taking notes on a peculiar dialect that he hears coming from a Flower Girl. He amuses the crowd by guessing where several people are from, within six miles, just based on their dialect. He meets a colleague named Pickering and the two men take off. The next day the Flower Girl shows up at Higgins’ home where he and Pickering are discussing phonetics. She introduces herself as Eliza Doolittle and asks Higgins to give her lessons on how to speak like a lady. Higgins and Pickering think that Eliza will make an interesting project and make a bet out of it: Higgins thinks that he can make people believe Eliza is a Duchess within six months.

Eliza is beautiful when cleaned up and she is a quick learner. At the first test, which occurs at the home of Higgins’ mother, Eliza charms everyone for a time especially the young man Freddy Eynsford-Hill. A few months later Eliza wins the bet for Higgins and he and Pickering seem uninterested in her afterward. Eliza does not know what she will do with her life now that she is a proper lady because she cannot go back to the streets, but she has no way to make money. Eliza gets angry at Higgins and leaves, but only after she makes him sufficiently angry, as well. Higgins becomes lost without Eliza and thinks she is a fool when she says she wants to marry Freddy. He lets her go but believes that she will come back to him.