The ancient Greeks tell the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who created a statue of a woman of such surpassing beauty that he fell in love with his own creation. Then, Aphrodite, taking pity on this man whose love could not reach beyond the barrier of stone, brought the statue to life and gave her to Pygmalion as his bride.

Centuries later, George Bernard Shaw captured the magic of this legend in his celebrated romantic play, Pygmalion. Pygmalion became Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, his statue an untutored flower girl from the streets of London, and the barrier between...