Accents in PYGMALION

[keen on kean]

Posted: 11/4/07 at 10:30pm

I attended today's matinee of Roundabout's PYGMALION. With this cast and this work, I expected a more satisfying day in the theater. But a question for anyone having seen this particular production - I was thrown by the lack of actual British accents. This is, after all, a period piece about London at a time when how one spoke spoke volumes about one's social position. Yet neither the Cockney nor the BBC Oxbridgian accent was evident with any consistency. Its absence took away, for me, much of the edge and poetry of Shaw's words. Did anyone else feel it was a mistake to downplay the Englishness of this play?