Pygmalion (play) Pygmalion (play) Pygmalion is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological figure. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story called "Pygmalion and Galatea" that was first presented in 1871. Shaw would also have been familiar with the burlesque version, "Galatea, or Pygmalion
Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack a defining part of Gilbert's work. His parodic pokes at grand opera continued to be seen in the Savoy operas. Gilbert's early burlesques were considered unusually tasteful, compared with the others on the London stage, and he would depart even further from the burlesque style after 1869, with 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. Gilbert further developed the "Dulcamara" tale in "The Sorcerer" (1877) and "The Mountebanks" (1892),