THE CIRCLE -CAMBRIDGE ARTS THEATRE
Nicholas Le Prevost and Jane Asher in The Circle, photo by Ellie Kurttz.
Everything about The Circle makes for a fabulous night at the theatre. The set is superb- a gorgeous country house with creamy luxury all round. George, the busy butler ( Robert Maskell is a wonderfully ponderous Jeeves) tweaks the room leaves the stage just in time for the entitled owner to change it all back again. The sun shines outside . People play tennis and everyone has fabulous 1920s outfits on. The luxury and privilege though soon turns sour. Master dramatist Somerset Maugham begins to shatter the idyll. Trouble is just around the corner.
Gorgeous red head Elizabeth,the wife of MP and general ditherer Arnold- (played with brilliant fussiness by Pete Ashmore) are about to receive Lady Catherine ‘Kitty’ and her lover Lord ‘Hughie’ Porteous back from exile in Italy. Kitty is Arnold’s mother. He hasn’t seen her since she eloped with Hughie 30 years ago. And to add to the awkwardness, Clive, Arnold’s father has just appeared to stay in his cottage on the estate . He will join them for luncheon- and proposes to stay for a week. Clive Francis must be one of the most celebrated actors on the English stage today and he plays the jilted cheated husband with dazzling charm. Nicholas Le Prevost as Hughie, once tipped as a future Prime Minister, is equally fascinating – gruff and hilarious. The two men battle it out.
Pete Ashmore, Jane Asher and Clive Francis in The Circle, photo by Ellie Kurttz.
As everyone talks about her with such anticipation it is Lady Kitty who intrigues them most. Arnold can hardly rmember her, he was five when she ran off, and Elizabeth sees her as a brave and wronged old lady. When Jane Asher as Kitty marches in, the shock waves reach across the comfortable peace of the perfect drawing room.
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This play horrified and intrigued its first audience and it is remarkable how near it is to today’s human experience of broken marriages, burning resentment and shattered dreams. In fact more like most modern marriages, when they go wrong.
“A cross between Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward’ is how journalist Shaun Noble described Somerset Maughan. Slip in Terence Rattigan and there is the golden thread of superb dramatists that runs through the early twentieth century. All four were homosexual in an era where that was problematic,Somerset Maugham had seen the cruel fate of Oscar Wilde’s fall from grace to his imprisonment and persecution - he must have been well aware ‘coming out’ could mean a devastating destruction of his career. He married Syrie Wellcome, a pharmaceutical heiress “ her mistake was to fall in love with me “ as a front for his passionate relationship with louche American Gerald Haxton – a gay man banned from entry into Britain At one critical point in his life Maugham had to decide between respectability and wealth married to wealthy Syrie- or an escape to an uncertain life abroad with Gerald his lover. He chose Gerald.
The Circle reflects Somerset Maugham’s own anguished dilemma. But it is also a brilliantly scripted account of upper class society and the sacrifices a membership of that golden élite demanded.
Nicholas Le Prevost, Jane Asher and Clive Francis in The Circle, photo by Ellie Kurttz -
Fast witty dialogue delivered by men and women of the world, the humour is always there. The audience last night was captivated by this play - its badinage, quips and the wisdom of his insights. Maugham, unfashionable though he has become, possesses a depth and subtlety more modern writers struggle to sustain. The Circle is a brilliant play, where the banter is bright and the characters compelling. Jane Asher is stunning as Lady Kitty , amusing and outrageous – a stage presence of poise and often pathos. The play has much to say about love, life and ageing. It is a chance to see some of the greatest actors of our time in roles worthy of their skill.
Every member of the cast is remarkable. Daniel Burke as the glamorous interloper Edward ‘Teddie” Luton, a planter home from his colonial life in Malaya, the man who turns the Circle round into another cycle of sacrifice for love. This is a chance to live in the roaring Twenties for a few hours, to explore the affairs of the heart – then and now. Don’t miss it.
