Roast suckling Pygmalion

The Bangkok Community Theatre is Thailand's oldest Englishlanguage theatre company, and yet somehow it's never got around to staging "Pygmalion", George Bernard Shaw's play that spawned a thousand gags about teaching English.

It has now, though, and you can see it in a dinnertheatre setting starting next week.

Most people know the story of "Pygmalion" from the musical adaptation "My Fair Lady", but Shaw's 1916 original went far beyond the male manipulation of women to explore the shallowness of many social conventions.

"It's a very amusing and brilliantly written social comedy of ideas," says Mark Sobels, who's directing "Pygmalion" in Bangkok.

"Audiences love it as a romantic comedy, although Shaw's description of it as a 'romance' was meant to be taken ironically."

Sobels sees "Pygmalion" as a nice fit for the BCT and the British Club, where it's being staged. "The buzz has been very positive from the outset."

He never sought to update this classic for modern eyes and ears or to bring out an alternative mesฌsage, as some directors might have tried to do, insisting that the original still works fine.

"The script is fresh and vibrant and glowingly resonant today. We've not changed it. I've taken care to let the comedy shine, because it's really a very funny play.

"But the truth of the characters and situations is paramount, and truth doesn't need to be updated - it just is. Of course I view the play through 2011 eyes, as will the audience.

"The personal relationships in 'Pygmalion' are fluid and hard to label. This is the main challenge in getting the performances right, and it's one of the chief attractions of the play. Shaw's characters are unconventional and they do unconventional things. They're brave, generous and loving, so we love them."

Helen Bowen plays Eliza Doolittle, the play's central and most beloved character. Bowen is a veteran of musical theatre and the "Shakespeare in the Park" productions in London. She spent five years with a touring company in Africa "performing plays about health issues with a view to bringing about social change", Sobels says.

As Professor Higgins' extraordinary mother, Bonnie Zellerbach steps out from her role in the TV soap opera "Dok Som Si Tong". On the big screen she's appeared in "The Impossible" with Ewan McGregor, Werner Herzog's "Rescue Dawn", "Turkish for Beginners" and the Thai film "Jaew".

Jonathan Truslow, who plays Henry Higgins, was on stages in Britain, Hong Kong, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi before settling in Bangkok.

Sobels, who's worked in radio, theatre and opera, loves spectacle, and guarantees that the "handsome sets" in "Pygmalion" are more elaborate than any seen at the British Club in a long while. "It's quite a big production!"

And it's also, he says, "satisfying to the mind, the senses and the heart". 

  Rhine in spine?

- No, the rain in Spain. You'll figure it out during "Pygmalion" at the British Club on Silom Soi 18 from September 15 to 17 and September 22 to 23.

- Tickets cost Bt1,200 with dinฌner.

- Call (087) 936 3798 or email [email protected].