The Constant Wife By W. Somerset Maugham
OPENING NIGHT – Tuesday 29 March at 7.45pm
Wednesday 30 March to Saturday 2 April at 7.45pm
Saturday Matinee at 2.30pm
Tickets: £12.00
Set in the late 1920’s at the height of Art Deco culture and the flourishing progress of feminism, Maugham’s frank and fizzing comedy sparkles with Coward-like wit and crackles with arguments about marriage and infidelity; are the sexes programmed at birth – or not? Is sauce for the goose really sauce for the gander?
Constance is the calm, intelligent and self-possessed wife of John Middleton, a successful London surgeon. Friends and family are desperate to tell her of her husband’s infidelity – with her own best friend, Marie-Louise. They expect the typical response of the ‘wronged wife’…. But Constance is anything but typical. She is complex, clever and increasingly liberated; a character whose creator was a master both of language and the play of ideas. Her journey will lead her to discover the very core of love, infidelity and equality.
One of Maugham’s most captivating creations, the play is as fresh and relevant today as it was in 1926. It holds up a mirror to the audience: how much have our social attitudes really changed, nearly 100 years on, from those of the late 1920’s?
Booking is open for this rarely performed funny and thought-provoking play, online at cornexchange.org.uk.
