5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent two-volume selection of Maugham's best plays, July 21, 2011
This review is from: Maugham Plays: One: Sheppey, The Sacred Flame, The Circle, The Constant Wife, and Our Betters (World Classics) (Vol 1) (Paperback)
This review refers to both volumes which are considered as one work!
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W. Somerset Maugham
Plays: One
Methuen, Paperback, 1997.
8vo. xxx, 468 pp.
Chronology [vii - xii]
Introduction by Anthony Curtis [xiii - xxx]
Sheppey
The Sacred Flame
The Circle
The Constant Wife
Our Betters
This selection first published by Mandarin Paperbacks in 1991 as "Selected Plays".
Reissued in this series with a new Introduction in 1997 by Methuen Publishing.
Plays first published in Great Britain by Heinemann in:
1921 (The Circle), 1923 (Our Betters), 1927 (The Constant Wife)*, 1929 (The Sacred Flame)** and 1933 (Sheppey).
* Not exactly. "The Constant Wife" was first published by George H. Doran.
** Not really. "The Sacred Flame" was first published by Doubleday Doran in 1928
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W. Somerset Maugham
Plays: Two
Methuen, Paperback, 1999.
8vo. xxviii, 342 pp.
Chronology [vii - xii]
Introduction by Anthony Curtis [xiii - xxviii]
For Services Rendered
The Letter
Home and Beauty
Lady Frederick
This selection first published by Mandarin Paperbacks in 1996 as "For Services Rendered and Other Plays".
Reissued in this series with a new Introduction in 1999 by Methuen Publishing.
Plays first published in Great Britain by Heinemann in:
1923 (Home and Beauty), 1927 (The Letter), 1931 (Lady Frederick)*, 1932 (For Services Rendered).
* This is grossly incorrect. "Lady Frederick" was written in 1903 and first produced, with a huge success, in 1907. It beggars belief that it was first published more than 20 years later. In fact, "Lady Frederick" was first published by Heinemann in 1912.
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These beautifully presented Methuen paperbacks reprint altogether nine of the best plays of W. Somerset Maugham, written and produced between 1915 and 1932 when the famous British writer enjoyed quite a popularity as playwright as well. The exception is "Lady Frederick" which was written as early as 1903 and turned out to be Maugham's first great success as a dramatist four years later. Between 1908 and 1913 Maugham was the most celebrated playwright in England and no less than 10 of his plays were produced, not always but very often with great success. The facts that at one time during 1908 he had four plays running simultaneously in London and that that prompted Punch to publish its famous cartoon with the worried Shakespeare in front of a wall with Maugham's posters are well known. None of these plays, however, save Lady Frederick, is reprinted here and that's so much the better since in later years Maugham wrote distinctly better plays, combining much more ingeniously the comic and the serious. Should you care to learn what I think about the plays themselves, you are directed to my review of Maugham's
The Collected Plays (Heinemann, 1952, 3 vols.). What follows here are just a few remarks about both volumes of this Methuen edition.
First of all, I must say I am impressed by the pictures of Maugham on the covers of both volumes; he really does make Don Corleone look like an amateur. Now, seriously, the books are handsomely bound and printed and with some fine bonuses, too. In addition to the plays there are an indifferent chronology (identical in both volumes) and very interesting introduction by Anthony Curtis that follows Maugham's (almost) lifelong love affair with the stage and the success, often a great one, that he enjoyed for quarter of a century or so (also identical in both volumes). Anthony Curtis also discusses each play separately and briefly providing a lot of useful if not altogether absorbing information about productions, actors and actresses, contemporary criticism and his personal opinion from time to time; of course these parts of his introduction are not identical in both volumes. In general, Mr. Curtis is agreeably amusing to be read but sometimes he can be somewhat presumptuous as in the case with the famous (and scandalous in 1920s) adultery scene in the Second act of "Our Betters" for which Mr Curtis unkindly remarks that it reminds more of Maugham and his companion/secretary/lover Haxton than of something common at the time - as if he was there, as if it mattered.
Anyway, the two Methuen volumes are worth acquiring if you want an excellent sample of Maugham's best works for the stage. Interestingly, volume two contains one play that is missing from Maugham's "The Collected Plays" (1952, 18 plays, 3 vols.) and that is the only play he adapted from a short story of his. (Contrary to the popular belief, the hugely successful play "Rain", based on Maugham's most famous short story with the same name, was not adapted for the stage by him; John Colton and Clemence Randoplh did this.) I mean of course "The Letter" which closely follows the short story with the same name first published in book form as part of his collection with Malayan stories "The Casuarina Tree" (1926). The play has two alternative endings and they both are reprinted here. Although I prefer the short story rather than the play, it is quite interesting to see how Maugham converted the former into the latter; it gives a special glimpse of his working methods that you cannot find elsewhere.
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