REVIEW - Weston Mercury and Somersetshire Herald Friday October 10th 1952 - ELOPEMENT IS ROMANTIC, BUT IS IT WORTH IT?

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DRAMATIC SOCIETY IN SOMERSET MAUGHAM'S "THE CIRCLE"

 

There is the contrast of runaway lovers of two generations in Somerset Maugham's delicious comedy, "The Circle," which Weston-super-Mare Dramatic Society presents at Knightstone Theatre this week.

Lady Catherine Champion-Cheyney was a famous beauty in her day. Now she is old, and given to trying to hide her grey hairs and wrinkled cheeks. But her mask of assumed beauty, gaiety, and youth does not deceive. Lord Porteous, the man for whom she left her husband, might have become Prime Minister had he not sacrificed his political career to run away with her. He is now grey-headed, querulous, a heavy drinker. With both of them the rapturous, adventurous moment of elopement has been followed by years of frustration and disillusionment.

This is the example of romantic elopement debunked which faces another Champion-Cheyney wife, beautiful young Elizabeth, who is also planning to run away from husband and security. What shall she do?

Question and answer are given in a play of brilliant craftsmanship, and which the company performs skilfully. The work by the playwright who really knows his business is always so eminently worth doing. Somerset Maugham has provided richly-drawn parts, and a play that is immensely funny while also tickling the intellect in more serious vein. If one laughs at Lady Catherine, one also senses her tragedy.

        A Play Without Packing

Somerset Maugham write with fine economy of words. This is a play without packing. The curtain goes up, the dialogue is directly pointed to the theme, and within a few minutes we are fully engrossed - or should be if interpretation is right.

This was a particularly good first night. Aileen Lundman, the producer, has achieved a presentation that is worthy to rank among the Society's most artistic achievements. The Edwardian setting of the drawing room at Ashton-Adey in Dorset is a most impressively tasteful creation, and the furnishings and costumes are charming. The play, too, has appropriate elegance, and

the characters are strongly drawn.

For the second week in succession, however, one has to criticise local amateurs for inaudibility. Even on first nights they must try to give out their lines firmly, instead of mumbling them at about quarter-strength voice.

        Grouping Handicapped

In some instances, however, in this week's production, audibility was not assisted by the grouping. In general, Mrs. Lundman moves her players easily and naturally, but I think too much of the play is set rather far back-stage, with that handsome, but rather large settee between. This piece of furniture appears to be wrongly placed. The principals in the play's more dramatic highlights certainly need to be much nearer the audience, and particularly so in the scene between Arnold and Elizabeth in which he overwhelms her with his show of self-sacrifice.

One of the most emotional moments of the play, it should not be played in a far corner of the room.

These are faults which may easily be corrected, and which but little detract from one's general appreciation of the skill and good taste that have gone into this production.

The greatest part in the play, of course, if that of Lady Catherine Champion-

Cheyney, and it receives splendid performance from Sylvia Sainsbury. The

difficulty with a role like this is to ensure that the audience gets all the fun

there is to it, and yet to ensure that Lady Catherine remains a very human,

even tragic figure. Mrs. Sainsbury has achieved essential balance.

If anything, there is a slight tilt in favour of the comedy as against natural

character, but the fault is not one to be quibbled about greatly. All that is

artificial about Lady Cathy - her flamboyancy, heavy make-up, forced gaiety,

and archness is well assumed, and Mrs. Sainsbury also affords the contrast

of Lady Cathy unmasked, particularly in the pitiable moment when Elizabeth

finds her photograph in the album.

        A Wasted Life

Foster Tanner puts on the years amazingly well as Lord Porteous. Here is a

man who might have been great, but is now grown old, petty and embittered.

The character is well drawn, and is one of the best contributions Mr. Tanner

has made to local dramatics. If lord Porteous is at moments a figure of fun, one also is made to dwell on the fact that his is a life that has been wasted.

Surely with such examples as Lady Catherine and Lord Porteous before her, Elizabeth will not let history repeat itself? Elizabeth has married Arnold Champion-Cheyney, M.P., Lady Catherine's son by the husband she deserted. She has position and all the advantages of wealth, but her marriage is not happy. Elizabeth's warm affectionate nature has little affinity with that of cold, priggish Arnold, who is absorbed by his political career and his interests in interior decoration, and who frankly admits he has no time for sex.

Elizabeth is inevitably drawn towards Edward Luton, the frank young man, home on leave from his struggles as an Empire-builder in Malaya. He does not offer her security, but love and possibly hardship. The stage appearances of Ann Watts these days are rare, but always welcome.

She creates an Elizabeth of great charm, who is sensitive, affectionate, and yet has the strength of character that suggests her ability to take and hold to a decision that most women would be afraid to reach.

An otherwise extremely pleasing performance did not quite satisfy in its emotional content in the big scene in which Arnold offers to make everything easy. The fact that this scene was played in a corner has

something to do with this, but there was also an absence of depth in the acting of both

Elizabeth and Arnold.

        Bristol Actor's Weston Debut

Fastidious Arnold, whose world is that of politics and interior decoration, is played by Billy

Poeton, a well-known Bristol actor, making his first appearance with the Weston Society.

Mr. Poeton acts very well indeed, and is a welcome recruit to local amateur theatricals.

He does not succeed, however, in getting Arnold into the right perspective in the first act,

and this results in the audience being somewhat puzzled by the play's opening. At the

start Arnold is too much a comic, and one feels that Mr. Poeton is trying to make him

appear funny. We cannot at the play's opening imagine that Arnold being an M.P., even

with the smallest of majorities. Arnold is really a very serious individual, a man of strong

character, and we must not be made to think otherwise, even though we find his

fastidiousness immensely amusing.

In presenting comedy of the class and subtlety of "The Circle," it must, of course, always

be borne in mind that the humour must flow naturally out of character, and that any

attempt to force the funny aspect is at once noticed because the character is so obviously

toppling out of comedy into farce.

Mr. Poeton redeems himself in the later acts.

        Brilliantly-Played Scene

The scene in which he tells Elizabeth he will not give her freedom is brilliantly played. The

highly-dramatic moment finds him very sound and convincing, and apart from the opening

I like his study of Arnold immensely.

John Sennett has the handicap of youth and inexperience in playing Edward Luton, Elizabeth's lover. He is a little too young to act this part adequately, but it is a most promising performance, and he mingles shyness and forthrightness most engagingly. With him one could not complain of lack of volume in the voice, but in his early appearance he was inclined to speak too swiftly, and with lack of colour. Yet he showed later he can speak most clearly and attractively, and the moment in which he rallies an Elizabeth who appears to be weakening in her intentions is grandly spoken and acted.

        Mr. Brown Is Happy

Walter H. Brown is most comfortably happy in the part if Clive Champion-Cheyney, Lady Catherine's husband and father of Arnold. Clive, who confesses he likes old wine and young women, has weathered the years much better than his wife and her lover, Lord Porteous. He had not seen his wife and Lord Porteous since the day they ran off together, and is apprehensive at meeting them again. When, however, he sees what time has done to them and how much better he has survived the years, he takes a malicious delight in the situation.

Mr. Brown plays this role with mounting good humour. He gives us a Clive who is just bursting with hearty well-being. One senses his fondness for Elizabeth, and lack of bitterness towards his wife and Lord Porteous. He is the good fellow who has the solution to the play's problem.

Everything has gone Clive's way, no wonder he has the happiest laugh of all at the curtain - but there's even a surprise for him.

It is a pleasure to see Keturah Tanner in Weston dramatics once again. Her Mrs. Shenstone has but a brief appearance, but is a delightful character. Butler and footman are played with appropriate dignity by Neil Hooper and Rene Verbrugge.

The charming setting was specially made locally by James Fredricks, and C.R. Lundman, the stage manager, and Rene Court, his assistant, are to be congratulated on the painstaking and skilful manner in which they have achieved a scene with impressive elegance.

Concluding performances are on Saturday.                                                                                                           "EVERYMAN"