Galatea, or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a musical burlesque that parodies the Pygmalion

Pygmalion (mythology)

Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.-In Ovid:In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a...

 legend, and specifically W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

's play Pygmalion and Galatea. The libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens

Henry Pottinger Stephens

Henry Pottinger Stephens, also known as Henry Beauchamp , was an English dramatist and journalist. With a variety of partners, he wrote burlesques, comic operas and musical comedies that briefly rivalled the Savoy Operas in popular esteem.-Life and career:"Pot" Stephens was born in Barrow-on-Soar,...

 and W. Webster. The score was composed by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz

Meyer Lutz

Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works....

. The production was premiered at the Gaiety Theatre, London

Gaiety Theatre, London

The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...

 on 26 December 1883.

Background

This type of work, Victorian burlesque, was popular in Britain at the time. Other examples include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Little Jack Sheppard

Little Jack Sheppard

Little Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke...

(1885), Monte Cristo Jr (1886), Pretty Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim

Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim

Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim is a musical burlesque written by Richard Henry . The music was composed by Meyer Lutz...

(1887), Mazeppa, Faust up to Date

Faust up to date

Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz . The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt...

(1888), Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue

Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue

Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun...

(1888), Carmen up to Data

Carmen up to Data

Carmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt....

(1890), Cinder Ellen up too Late

Cinder Ellen up too Late

Cinder Ellen up too Late is a musical burlesque written by Frederick Hobson Leslie and W. T. Vincent, with music arranged by Meyer Lutz from compositions by Lionel Monckton, Sidney Jones, Walter Slaughter, Osmond Carr, Scott Gatti, Jacobi, Robertson, and Leopold Wenzel. Additional lyrics were...

(1891), and Don Juan (1892, with lyrics by Adrian Ross

Adrian Ross

For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

).

John Hollingshead

John Hollingshead

John Hollingshead was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of the 19th century. He is best remembered as the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre, London...

 had managed the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1886 as a venue for variety, continental operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

, light comedy, and numerous musical burlesques arranged by the theatre's music director, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses." In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes

George Edwardes

George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....

, whom he had hired in 1885. Nellie Farren

Nellie Farren

Nellie Farren was an English actress and singer best known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre.Born into a theatrical family, Farren began acting as a child...

, as the theatre's "principal boy," and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. In the early 1890s, as burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy

Edwardian Musical Comedy

Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...

.

Galatea or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a parody of W.S. Gilbert's blank verse romantic play Pygmalion and Galatea. The Morning Post described the piece as "A short burlesque of Mr. Gilbert's classic drama in which Miss Mary Anderson is now delighting the public at the Lyceum." It was the second item in a double bill with the three-act comedy The Rocket by Arthur Wing Pinero

Arthur Wing Pinero

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English actor and later an important dramatist and stage director.-Biography:...

. Songs arranged or composed for the piece by Meyer Lutz included "The Masher King" (Pygmalion), "The Bashful Maiden" (Myrine) and "The Modern Swell" (Galatea).

The cast was as follows:

• Galatea – Nellie Farren
• Myrine – Miss C. Gilchrist
• Daphne – Maud Taylor
• Pygmalion – Edward Terry
  Edward O'Connor Terry
  Edward O'Connor Terry , English actor, who became one of the most influential actors and comedians of the Victorian era.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Cyniscos – W. Elton
• Chrysos – E. J. Henley
• Leucippe – Phyllis Broughton
• Mimos – Miss E. Broughton
• Agesimos – Miss M. Watson
• Pyrrha – Miss M. Ross
• Chloe – Miss P. Watson
• Myrrha – Miss Handley
• Lesbia – Miss Dupré
• Alpha – Miss B. Matiste
• Beta – Miss P. Matiste
• Gamma – Miss Chester
• Delta – Miss Overington

Synopsis

The plot turns on its head the plot of Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea. The following synopsis was printed in The Era

The Era (newspaper)

The Era was a British weekly paper, published from 1838 to 1939. Originally a general newspaper, it became noted for its sports coverage, and later for its theatrical content.-History:...

:

The title will perhaps suggest that in this instance Galatea is the sculptor and Pygmalion the statue – the ideal man endowed with life and able to toddle, though a very earnest appeal to the "gods" perched up aloft in the gallery. The living statue is very angular in movement, and its face is not exactly handsome; but Pygmalion with his first breath becomes filled up with vanity. He exclaims with rapture, "How beautiful I am!" and given a hand-mirror he seems never tired of gazing upon his own loveliness, and of breaking forth into ecstatic song with, "Just look at that and look at this." Pygmalion is a classical masher. He "mashes" not only Galatea who made him, but Myrine and Daphne, who, bewitched by his manly beauty, give the "cold shoulder" to their respective and respectable husbands, Cyniscos, Leucippe and Chrysos, who, being thereby enraged, resolve not to mash, but to smash Pygmalion and to begin by chipping him. This treatment of course soon inclines Pygmalion to return to his old position, and then peace and happiness are restored.

Critical reception

The Era was not impressed, calling the piece, "A very tame affair. Mr Stephens seems to have had a funny idea, but has not funnily put it into shape." Other papers took a more favourable view. The Morning Post called it "this amusing burlesque". The Standard

Evening Standard

The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

thought that although the plot "lacks both interest and variety", Edward Terry was "convulsively funny" as Pygmalion. Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper wrote, "The burlesque is not remarkable for its jokes, though they are plentiful. It affords opportunity for a good laugh and is a capital skit on the original."