Pygmalion and Galatea (play) Pygmalion and Galatea (play) Pygmalion and Galatea, an Original Mythological Comedy is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts based on the Pygmalion story. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 9 December 1871 and ran for a very successful 184 performances. It was revived many times, including an 1883 production in New York starring Mary Anderson as Galatea, an 1883–84 revival at the Lyceum Theatre, again with Anderson, and an 1888 production at the Lyceum Theatre, with Julia Neilson as Cynisca. "Pygmalion" was Gilbert's greatest success to that date and is said to
Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren our degenerate stage." Gilbert's early pantomimes, burlesques and farces, full of awful puns and broad humour, show signs of the satire that would later be a defining part of his work. These works gave way, after 1869, to plays containing original plots and fewer puns. These included his "fairy comedies", such as "The Palace of Truth" (1870) and "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1871), and his German Reed Entertainments, which led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Other Personalities by Legions of Useful Utilities and Superior Supernumeraries. Members of the Vokes family danced in the piece. "Note: the parenthetical descriptions of