Artist:
The Constant Wife
Genre: Theater
Background: Set in a London drawing room
in the 1920s, this brilliant comedy follows the blossoming
of Constance, a faithful wife who discovers that her husband
is having an affair with her best friend. Rather than
humiliating herself and others, she denies the affair,
defends the two, and sets about turning bad luck, unfaithful
friends, local gossip and a broken heart to her own advantage.
A lesson in life that will delight and mortify saints
and scoundrels alike.
Elegance and wealth, at least on the stage, take away
the rough edges from conflict and bad behavior and make
them somehow refined. W. Somerset Maugham's mannered 1927
comedy examines infidelity among the privileged classes
with a gentle reproof that seems far out of the mainstream
in our politically correct and feminist social structure.
Perhaps taking a paragraph out of his own life--his interior
decorator wife, who knew of his long-standing love affair
with an American man, eventually divorced him--he ponders
the delicate balance of love and affection felt by a long-married
couple when an indiscretion committed by the husband is
publicly revealed.
