Old Play in Manhattan

The Circle (by W. Somerset Maugham; produced by William A. Brady). Revived last week, 17 years after the original Broadway production starring Mrs. Leslie Carter and John Drew, Maugham's The

Circle still "played" and still had point. The plot, like the title, is Euclidean, demonstrating how two triangles are equal in all respects. The husband, the wife and the lover of Triangle A are the older generation from whom the young people of Triangle B refuse to profit. The facts that Lady Kitty (Grace George) ran off with Lord Porteous and that they turn up 30 years later to serve as Horrible Examples do not deter Lady Kitty's daughter-in-law (Tallulah Bankhead) from running off with Teddy Luton (John Emery).

The Circle wears well because it offers no dated problem in morals, but a permanent reflection on human nature. The Woman with a Past who had darkened the drawing room of Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was no such baleful figure for Maugham. If Lady Kitty has a mission, it is to avert tragedy, not foment it. But knowing human beings, Maugham cynically foils her, shows how the sins of the mothers, far from being visited upon succeeding generations, become their copybook maxims. And knowing the theatre as well, Maugham makes his demonstration witty and compact--a lesson for playwrights if not for reckless wives.

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