Elizabeth (Olivia Vinall), the dissatisfied young wife at the heart of Somerset Maugham’s 1921 drama, enters the drawing room holding a copy of Anna Karenina. It’s the kind of detail in Tom Littler’s deft production that speaks, well, volumes about romantic longings in a prosaic English country house.
Elizabeth is married to Arnold (Pete Ashmore), a stolid MP, and her imagination works overtime as she anticipates their weekend guests. In Arnold’s childhood, his mother, a famed society beauty, scandalously ran off with her lover, yet the ageing renegades disappoint: Jane Asher’s Lady Kitty gaudily decorated in scarlet, all squawk and clatter, bickering with a querulous Nicholas Le Prevost. It wouldn’t be so dismaying if Elizabeth wasn’t herself contemplating doing a romantic runner.
Maugham – the missing link between Wilde and Coward – was gay, but unhappily married to Syrie, a celebrated interior designer. Does her passion inform Arnold, prone to lecture his neighbours on their decorative missteps? He shows more fondness for furniture than family: fair enough, perhaps, given the family, but discouraging to a young bride.
How do you design a satisfying private life? Arnold’s father (Clive Francis, wonderfully pitched), enjoys “the luxury of assisting financially a succession of dear little things, in a somewhat humble sphere, between the ages of 20 and 25”. When they hit 25 he packs them off with a diamond ring, like the Leonardo DiCaprio of the home counties.
Maugham’s play is consistently candid and surprising, and Littler’s production keeps us guessing about what Elizabeth will, or should, do. Vinall’s wide eyes fix on another breezy visitor: a hearty Englishman, here reimagined as a charming Indian businessman (Chirag Benedict Lobo, limber, flirty and in really good trousers).
Littler’s debut production as artistic director at the Orange Tree is strongly acted and nicely judged (jokes about dentures find a sympathetic audience), but also leans feelingly into the emotion. Asher and Le Prevost retain a seam of tenderness beneath their squabbling, while Ashmore suggests the unhappy toddler within the middle-aged man. Tears and tantrums are always close to the surface: following the heart’s demands is never easy.
