Desperate housewife

Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife, onstage at the Walnut Street Theatre, is an interesting, amusing and, at times, thought-provoking play. It’s a genteel English drawing-room comedy about very civilized people, dealing, in a very civilized way, with the old problem of adultery.

Replete with echoes of Shaw, Wilde and Coward, but without their ability to dig beneath the gleaming surface of high comedy, Maugham’s play was used as a vehicle for Ethel Barrymore – who created its title role with great success on Broadway – and later by Ingrid Bergman. It is revived for two reasons – the wonderful female roles and the continuing relevance of its message.

Few would claim that this 1926 English play – first seen in, of all places, Cleveland – itself represents a discovery, but there’s enough in Maugham’s take on sexual politics to keep audiences guessing, not to mention cheering heroine Constance Middleton (Alicia Roper) in her quest for both passion and financial independence.

The message is women’s liberation. Bear in mind that when it was written in the 1920s, Constance must have absolutely shocked theatergoers. She is intelligent, witty, glamorous and cultured, but has a mind of her own and manipulates her men to get what she wants.

Maugham’s plays are rarely performed today, although in 1908 he set the record with four plays running in the West End of London and inspired a cartoon that featured a peevish William Shakespeare asking the question, "Somerset who?" Maugham was a contemporary of Noel Coward and their plays portray similar societies. Coward’s last play about an embittered writer, A Song at Twilight, is a thinly disguised portrait of the elderly Maugham.

With Nancy Dussault shedding a delightful radiance on the well-made, well-mannered proceedings in the role of Mrs. Culver, The Constant Wife revives a view of a privileged British society. It is a Harley Street world of the 1920s, one of ease and affluence.

In the spirit of Restoration comedy, but with dialogue tamer than Wilde’s, Maughman uses pseudo-profound statements such as, "The questions that don’t really need answering are the most difficult to answer," or the quick but labored crack, "Decency died with Queen Victoria."

The immediate discovery at the opening of Act One is that Constance’s prominent surgeon husband, John Middleton, has been having an affair with her best friend. Far from being unaware of the infidelity, Constance has merely been preserving a discreet and philosophical silence: discreet because she is that kind of woman, philosophical because she has ruefully realized that she and John no longer feel for each other the love that once possessed them. Instead of creating the fuss of a scandal, she quietly takes a proffered job that gives her financial independence and the right, in her eyes, to a brief vacation from marriage with an old and conveniently attentive admirer. The result, in Maugham’s pragmatic – some might say cynical – equation, allows Constance to be "unfaithful" and "constant" at the same time, while battling the belief that fidelity on either side can be bought.

The play rivets our attention on Constance and creates concern for her well-being. The method of the script is to continually put Constance on the spot or at a seeming disadvantage, only to have her emerge clearly triumphant as she delivers a fitting bon mot.

Constance dominates the play with charm, glamour, intelligence and humor. At the end of the play, her husband says, "You are the most maddening, willful, capricious, wrongheaded, delightful and enchanting woman man was ever cursed with having for a wife." It’s a tall order for an actress to live up to, and Roper gorgeously fills the bill.

The play is divided into characters who are built almost entirely on stereotypes and those who constantly violate our expectations. Under Malcolm Black’s stylish and insightful direction, both groups come out looking good.

In a suave performance, the attractive ensemble achieves the necessary high gloss for such a period piece and despite that some of the upper-crust English dialogue is antiquated if not clumsy with clichés, the cast does marvelous work, giving the proceedings a fresh, natural conversant sound.

As Roper interprets Constance Middleton, she is a woman of wisdom, tolerance, humor and sexuality. She is ironic without being mean, independent without being aggressive and, as John Middleton discovers, infuriatingly logical.

An upbeat, well-modulated civility is of the essence throughout, and it is admirably conveyed by a cast whose principals include the handsome Greg Wood as Constance’s errant husband, Ursula Freundlich as her morally frail best friend, Pilar Uribe as her perpetually indignant sister and Dan Olmstead as the old flame whose ardor still burns bright.

Everything about this show exudes period charm. The static set has an elegant grandeur and the wide opening downstage appears to be a runway to exhibit Ellis Tillman’s glorious array of costumes.

The Constant Wife
through Sunday
Walnut Street Theatre
825 Walnut St.
Tickets: $10-$55
215-574-3550
www.wstonline.org