Pygmalion

Description

In the play’s introduction, Tawfiq al-Hakim acknowledges that the first thing that revealed the wonder of the Pygmalion myth to him was not a theatrical work, but rather a visual art piece: an oil painting called “Pygmalion and Galatea” by the artist Jean Raoux, displayed in the Louvre Museum. After some time, he almost forgot the myth, but seeing a film adaptation by Bernard Shaw reminded him of it. Thus, he writes, “Then the old desire was awakened within me, and I resolved to write this story… I did so knowing that this myth has been used in almost every branch of art… and it must have been adapted into several plays, I believe… I am therefore dealing with a well-trodden myth in world literature and art… And yet, who knows? Perhaps some critics have observed that ‘The People of the Cave,’ adapted from the Holy Quran, ‘Scheherazade,’ inspired by ‘One Thousand and One Nights,’ and ‘Pygmalion,’ drawn from Greek mythology… are all but different facets of the same coin?”