extreme makeover, pygmalion edition

Last night, my family went to see the opening night of the Lee's Summit Community Christian School production of My Fair Lady. First of all, kudos to the entire theater department at LSCCS, to all the actors, all the behind-the-scenes people, and to the teachers, Wayne and Emily Stam, for producing an outstanding production. It was really excellent and enjoyable.

I was struck by how similar this play is to so many of our current television shows: Extreme Makeover, Nip/Tuck, and so forth. In this play, Professor Henry Higgins bets that he can take an ordinary street urchin and, in six months, transform her into a dutchess. His friend, Colonel Pickering, is intrigued by this claim and takes him up on the bet. The selected street urchin is a flower seller named Eliza Doolittle. By the end of the show, Eliza has successfully been transformed into a beautiful, upper-class woman.

This is an excellent musical. However, if there is a lesson to be learned from it, it must be that the way we speak can be the key between upper-class success and lower-class disaster. Imagine the way that some of your lower-class friends speak, and you will know that this is surely true. Yet also, it is possible to ascend that gap and to join the upper class. We live in a land of opportunity. It is possible.