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
Pygmalion and Galatea (1898 film) had long been popular with theatrical illusionists. "Pygmalion and Galatea" was the first film adaptation of the story; many others followed it in the silent era and beyond. Méliès and Jehanne d'Alcy play the roles of Pygmalion and Galatea in the film. Ideas from the myth returned in later films by Méliès, including "The Brahmin and the Butterfly" (1901), in which the woman's power and freedom of choice are emphasized, and which Jennifer Forrest summarized as "a Pygmalion and Galatea scenario gone wrong"; "The Drawing Lesson, or the Living Statue" (1903), in which a mischievous magician creates an equally mischievous