Claire Danes is not just in for a penny -- she's in for a pound. In her New York stage debut, she's playing one of dramatic literature's stickiest, trickiest roles: Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's
Pygmalion, now being given an excellent revival by the Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre. In five scenes of verbal athleticism that many observers believe is comparable to William Shakespeare at his bantering best -- a belief shared by Shaw himself -- Eliza has to develop from vowel-butchering Covent Garden flower girl to upper-class drawing-room flower.

Well, bully for Danes. In three of the five scenes, the tall, lissome theater debutante -- looking especiall[...]