The Circle

American Players Theatre

Spring Green, Wis.

(608) 588-2361

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Director James Bohnen’s revival of Somerset Maugham’s 1921 comedy is a pleasant surprise, said Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. Though Maugham is a canonical novelist, most of his plays have fallen into “dusty obscurity.” But as Bohnen and company demonstrate, The Circle has an “unexpectedly contemporary feel.” The play concerns a pair of love triangles, both of which threaten to derail the political career of a young prig named Arnold. His mother, who left his father when Arnold was 5, has returned with her aging lover for an ill-timed visit. Meanwhile, Arnold’s wife, Elizabeth, has herself fallen for another man. All signs indicate she’ll soon leave Arnold.

The reason this play often feels so contemporary is its unusual emphasis on female characters, said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. By focusing heavily on the plights of the two female leads—one who’s deciding whether to break the bonds of an unhappy marriage, the other who’s dealing with the consequences of a similar decision—Maugham presciently addressed the “massive social changes coming with the dawn of feminism and increased sexual freedom.” Paul Hurley and Susan Shunk are often riveting as Arnold and Elizabeth, while Tracy Michelle Arnold finds “just the right spot between comedy and pain” in portraying his mother. As forward thinking as the play often seems, it also delivers “a reminder of how little things change.” In wry fashion, Maugham explores the timeless tendency “of the young to ignore the wisdom of the old.”