Cirrus@Austlit

Adapted from Walch's earlier production, Pygmalion and his Gal-A-Dear (Melbourne, 1873), this second edition also contained parodies on a number of popular airs and 'a vast number of local allusions about everybody and everything' (Argus 8 June 1874, p.8). The dramatis personae, as described in advertising, are

'Pygmalion (a disciple of Phidias, but by no means of Hideous face or figure, who produces a speaking likeness of an Attic Nymph, and receives in return an emphatic declaration of love; his fate, however, is sad for, to quote an ancient goak, he "Makes Faces and then Busts")... Cynisca (Pygmalion's superior moiety - a lady with a voice, a temper, a grievance, and - a lover! Who while Pygmalion is employed with his marbles carries on a little game of quite a different kind)... Myrine (the sculptor's little sister, a scrumptious maiden, but classically correct - one of those girls "we read about, but seldom see")... Leucippe (Colonel on the Onety Onth Royal Horse Hellenes - a soldier of fortune, who having traveled knows a thing or two, and looks upon Athens as merely a spot of Greece)... [and] The Statue, otherwise Galatea (a lady with no pedigree, but a first-rate pedestal - "Our own make, very choice" - a being of marble-ous beauty)' (Argus 8 June 1874, p.8).