We accept PayPal, Visa & Mastercard
through our secure checkout.
|
The Circle (Maugham)
The Circle (Maugham)
|
Author: W. Somerset Maugham Publisher: Samuel French (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 80 Pub. Date: 1948 ISBN-10: 0573010714 ISBN-13: 9780573010712 Cast Size: 3 female, 4 male
|
About
the Play:
The Circle
was one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the
20th century.
The Circle has long
been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes.
The Circle is a full-length comedy by W. Somerset
Maugham. A titled English lady,
who eloped with a former Parliament official, returns with her new
husband to the estate – and the husband and son – she abandoned,
only to find that the son's wife may soon run off with her own lover.
Although the author is most celebrated as a novelist and
short-story writer, it was as a playwright that he first knew
success. Maugham's most frequently
revived play, The Circle is
widely regarded as his masterpiece
for the stage.
The Circle a rich comedy about double standards and gender
that focuses on two love triangles, which come full circle on a
weekend in an English country manor. The action is set in a grand
house, in the era of Downton Abbey, which is the pride and joy
of Arnold Champion-Cheney, a priggish MP, now three years married to
the lively, attractive, out-of-love Elizabeth. Thirty years earlier,
when Arnold was five, his mother ran off with his father's best
friend, Lord Porteous. Now, decades later, the eccentric Lady Kitty
returns from exile in Italy, older and wiser but still clinging to
her glamorous past. How will Arnold hold his respectable political
career together with his hurricane of a mother back in the mix? At a
family reunion, Lady Kitty discovers that her daughter-in-law, the
effervescent Elizabeth, is confronting the same dilemma. She is
smitten with a handsome house guest. Will events turn full circle,
with the new love triangle mirroring the past? With the benefit of
her own experience behind her, Kitty must decide whether or not to
encourage the elopement. This scintillating comedy of manners is a
seamless blend of romance and repartee.
The Circle premiered
in 1921 at The Haymarket Theatre in the West End of London and opened
at Maxine Elliott's Theatre on Broadway in 1926. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops. It has been revived
several times in the West End and on Broadway and continues to be
regularly performed in
regional, college, and community theatre productions today.
Cast: 3 female, 4 male
What people say:
"The Circle is a
piece that grips without ever outstaying its welcome ... this
superbly constructed, sharply observant play reveals unexpected
warmth and tenderness." — The Telegraph
"What Mr. Maugham has to say
he says here with consummate skill. As craftsmanship it is
perfect handiwork. Story and play are wholly united. The scenes cross
the stage with the natural ease of a dance. And the dialogue is the
most adroit that Mr. Maugham has ever written.... The
Circle is Mr. Maugham's most brilliant play, and well
worth restoring to the stage." — The New York Times
About the Playwright:
W. Somerset Maugham
(1874-1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story
writer. He was famous as a dramatist before he was known everywhere
for his superb short stories and for his novels, the immensely
acclaimed, Of Human Bondage, becoming one of the most widely
read works of fiction of the twentieth century. At
his peak, four of his plays were playing in London's West End at the
same time, a feat that would be unheard of today. His witty,
intelligent and politically minded work competed with his
contemporary Noel Coward, and was in the tradition of Oscar Wilde and
George Bernard Shaw.
|
|
|
|