It's a good thing that London is still diligently covering New York theater. With the departure of Linda Winer from Newsday, I think the Times is the only local newspaper left with a full time theater critic. We are asked to accept criticism of our theater from tawdry publications such as Entertainment Tonight and Hollywood Reporter.
Let me deliver Eliza from any imputations of prostitution. In Shaw's play, in the final scene between Eliza and HIggins, she tells him:
And don't you be too sure of yourself or of me. I could have been a bad girl if I'd liked. I've seen more of some things than you, for all your learning. Girls like me can drag gentlemen down to make love to them easy enough. And they wish each other dead the next minute.
Sher is receiving credit for tinkering with the relationship between Eliza and Higgins to bring it more in line with the resolution of Pygmalion, which is fine. Some may not be quite sure of what Shaw had in mind for the couple after the embittered parting in the last scene. As he wrote in his prose Epilogue to the play, written in response to theater managers tacking a romantic ending on to the play to please the audiences, although marriage between Eliza and Higgins was out of the question, nevertheless
Eliza's instinct tells her not to marry Higgins. It does not tell her to give him up. It is not in the slightest doubt as to his remaining one of the strongest personal interests in her life.
Even after Eliza marries the helpless Freddy, and the two of them finally reach financial independence, after being carried along largely through the largesse of Colonel Pickering, she is still no stranger to Wimpole Street.
It is astonishing how much Eliza still manages to meddle in the housekeeping at Wimpole Street in spite of the shop and her own family. And it is notable that though she never nags her husband, and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were his favorite daughter, she has never got out of the habit of nagging Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet for him. She snaps his head off on the faintest provocation, or on none.
It is fine for the relationship between Eliza and Higgins to continue, and Higgins is little changed, but Shaw insists that Eliza now gives as good or better than she receives.
If you are curious about the fate of the characters after the final curtain has come down, the Epilogue is an interesting read, although it may disappoint you.
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