The Circle

"Circle" is located in the stylish living room of Aston-Adey, the home of Champion-Cheinis in Dorset. Maugham's plot, which may be an outsider, involves two triangles, each consisting of a wife, husband and lover. The first of these are Clive, the deceitful husband, his ex-wife Lady Kitty, and the second husband, Lord Porteous. Thirty years before the start of the game, Lady Kitty fled to Italy with Lord Porteus, leaving her husband and five-year-old son Arnold at the mercy of fate. The play begins with the return of this now-elderly couple to England and the reunion of the family, who have been accepted by Arnold's curious wife. To complicate the situation, the previously abandoned man, Clive, invades the visiting couple without losing the chance to sow funny verbal chaos. One of the teenagers, Arnold, the second triangle, the stuffy MP and furniture collector, consists of his lively but bored wife and his beautiful guests at Teddy's house. Taking matters all over the loop, Elizabeth and Teddy fell in love with each other. The main concern of the game, therefore, is whether they would have looked like lovers thirty years ago. Maugham's action of the Mirror Hall cleverly calls the famous question to thought: Do people learn something from the past, or is the only lesson the past offers that people learn nothing from it?

• Read Now