“The Circle” by Somerset Maugham is currently showing at The Richmond Theatre and I was lucky enough to be invited along to review it last night. What a splendid, thoroughly enjoyable play! Clever, witty, funny, pertinent and above all ‘Evergreen’. Despite some of the language being outdated, Maugham’s themes of love, marriage, infidelity and abandonment are just as powerful today as they were when the play was written in 1921. It’s a reminder of how important love remains and is essentially what we’re all still obsessed with one way or another. The cuckolded father, Clive (played by Clive Francis) has some worryingly sexist lines, but apart from that I would say the play is certainly holding up in the test of time and still has a lot to say about the emotional conflict between inner feelings and outer form.
The essence of the story is that all actions have consequences, but you can do anything you want in life as long as you are prepared to deal with those consequences. The story looks at what love means to each character in all it’s complicated forms and the neglect of duty for art or love.
We are first introduced to Arnold (played brilliantly by Pete Ashmore) – a formal, uptight, slightly unusual character, before meeting his young wife Elizabeth (played by Olivia Vinall). Very quickly we are introduced to the various dynamics and as the story begins to unfold we see how Arnold feels about being abandoned by his mother. His wife has taken it upon herself to invite his mother and her second husband (who was formerly his father’s best friend) to come and stay and he’s understandably stressed, given he hasn’t seen her for 30 years. Elizabeth is fascinated by the fact that a woman would sacrifice her life and her son, for love. He simply cannot forgive his mother for abandoning him at the age of 5 and describes her as a woman who has “no sense of honour, duty or dignity.” Elizabeth on the other hand is alarmingly obsessed by her notoriety and by the fact that she gave up so much for love and can’t wait to meet her. Added to the mix is the surprising arrival of Arnold’s father (who he adores), back early from Paris to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, left right and centre.
We knew we were going to be in for a lot of fun and games.
Jane Asher plays Lady Catherine “Kitty” Champion-Cheney brilliantly and sweeps in looking gorgeous with her red hair and matching ensemble. She is splendid at being Kitty – a rather ghastly but amusing woman who was only 27 when she left and caused a massive scandal and was still dealing with the aftermath. Initially she is presented as being obsessed with how she looks and so insecure the conversation almost always has to be about her . Her browbeaten husband, Lord “Hughie” Porteous, slight of voice and difficulty with his front teeth is clearly a mere shadow of his former self is played by Nicholas Le Provost with great comic timing. Clive notes that he gets drunk every night and describes him behind his back as “sodden and grumpy with false teeth – she’s ruined him.”
The three older characters all have a different perspective on how it’s all turned out – Clive thinks his ex wife is silly and worthless and would have been much happier if she’d stayed in England with her friends and interests – we are led to believe that is possibly true until later, when Elizabeth presents yet another side to her character and her beliefs.
It’s very cleverly written, despite Maugham being widely known for his over use of clichés, he flits between each relationship, throwing spanners in galore which seem to change the power balance from one minute to the next. But clichés are clichés for a reason and essentially Maugham speaks a lot of universal truths, using prose that is straight and clear – such as “the tragedy of love is indifference”. One of his most famous quotes (not in this play) is “the love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.”
Clive, Arnold’s father comes across as “wicked but happy” since his wife abandoned him. He admits that although he must be in his late 70’s, early 80’s, he only likes young women and describes his former wife in superficial physical ways. He wonders if love is overrated as he “prefers a succession of dear little things… I like young women between the ages of 20 and 25 – on their 25th birthday I give them a diamond ring and start all over again.” It’s all pretty distasteful and a little bit sad. He loves goading the others and causing rifts. He asks Elizabeth if she’s happy with his son Arnold and then asks why she hasn’t had any babies yet….she’s 25 years old…my how times have changed. His other dated/sexist lines include “changing my mind is the only thing an elderly gentleman shares with a pretty young woman” and “I am never cross with a woman under the age of 30.”
None of the characters were particularly attractive to be honest. Perhaps Elizabeth’s love interest Teddy Luton (played by Daniel Burke) had more to him – especially as he described Malaya to Elizabeth and the life he could give her there once he’d declared his love’ “I’m awfully in love with you” – but again, everything was “ripping” and he was somewhat in the shadows as to be expected given the storyline. Elizabeth feels trapped, just as Arnold’s mother did in a big house with staff and poor old Arnold desperately loves her but seems unable to show it or be intimate with her – he’s too busy with his rising political career and his interest in interior design. He’s unsentimental, until he has reason to be upset and then he reverts back to being the wounded five year old child.
To understand the story a little more requires looking into the background of the author’s life a little. William Somerset Maugham, an English writer was born in Paris in 1874 and died in Nice in 1965 at the age of 91. He had a difficult childhood and loved travelling, touring the world and collecting notes for his prolific writing – he was fascinated by life in the raw. He trained and succeeded at becoming a doctor, but never practiced because his first book was published the year he was meant to start his medical career. The year “The Circle” was written was only one of 7 other plays he wrote that decade. He clearly remains an undervalued playwright. His background explains his interest in conforming to social norms, morality, religion (he was a non believer) a sense of duty – in essence the social obligations and narrow minded procrastinations of English life. He tried it for a while, marrying Syrie for 12 years, but before, during and after their marriage his main partner was the younger man he travelled the world with. Speaking of his sexuality, Maugham later said that he had made the mistake of thinking he was “three quarters normal and one quarter queer, when in fact I was three quarters queer and only one quarter normal.” So sad that he refers to essentially his repression and lack of being able to live as he wanted as the “Normal” bit. Just like Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward, they had to live as outsiders in eras which denied and criminalised their sexuality. His young lover was banned from coming into the UK because of a homosexual incident. It must have ruined the way they wanted to live their lives.
Maugham was extremely worldly – not the archetypal English gentleman at all. He spoke French better than English before he came to live in England where he was mocked for his accent and somewhat unsurprisingly developed a stammer that stayed with him always. This perhaps explains Arnold’s character a little more and if we could fully modernise the play, he would most definitely be a repressive gay man.
The question is, will The Circle (Of Life) repeat itself in just one generation or will there be a different outcome? Will the sense of honour and duty, comfort and money win over love?
I would recommend that you go and find out.
You won’t be disappointed.
Photograph by ©Nobby Clark
