production of the play, Mrs. Kendall made much of Galatea’s womanly pathos, there is plenty of room for an effective rendering of the character, which deliberately hides the woman in the statue.  Such a rendering is, as might have been expected, Miss Anderson’s.  Even in her ingenious scenes of comedy with Leucippe and with Chrysos, there is no more dramatic vivacity than might be looked for in a temporarily animated block of stone.  Her love for the sculptor who has given her vitality is perfectly cold in its purity.  There is no spontaneity in the accents in which it is told, no amorous impulse to which it gives rise.  This new Galatea, however, is fair to look upon—­so fair in her statuesque attitudes and her shapely presence, that the infatuation of the man who created her is readily understood.  By the classic beauty of her features and the perfect molding of her figure she is enabled to give all possible credibility to the legend of her miraculous birth.  Moreover, the refinement of her bearing and manner allows no jarring note to be struck, and although, when Galatea sadly returns to marble not a tear is shed by the spectator, it is felt that a plausible and consistent interpretation of the character has been given.”

The Times, 10th December, 1883.

“Mr. Gilbert’s play ‘Pygmalion and Galatea,’ is a perversion of Ovid’s fable of the Sculptor of Cyprus, the main interest of which upon the stage is derived from its cynical contrast between the innocence of the beautiful nymph of stone whom Pygmalion’s love endows with life, and the conventional prudishness of society.  Obviously the purpose of such a travesty may be fulfilled without any call upon the deeper emotions—­upon the stress of passion, which springs from that ’knowledge of good and evil’ transmitted by Eve to all her daughters.  It is sufficient that the living and breathing Galatea of the play should seem to embody the classic marble, that she should move about the stage with statuesque grace and that she should artlessly discuss the relations of the sexes in the language of double intent.  Miss Anderson’s degree of talent, as shown in the impersonations she has already given us, and her command of classical pose, have already suggested this character as one for which she was eminently fitted.  It was therefore no surprise to those who have been least disposed to admit this lady’s claim to greatness as an actress that her Galatea on Saturday night should have been an ideally beautiful and tolerably complete embodiment of the part.  If the heart was not touched, as, indeed, in such a play it scarcely ought to be, the eye was enabled to repose upon the finest tableau vivant that the stage has ever seen.  Upon the curtains of the alcove being withdrawn, where the statue still inanimate rests upon its pedestal, the admiration of the house was unbounded.  Not only was the pose of the figure under the lime-light artistic in the highest sense, but the tresses and the drapery