"I may be unfaithful - but I am constant."Â Opening on Valentine's Day, The Constant Wife is a modern comedy about infidelity, gossip, and sex. Recently emerging again, after many years of being dormant, the show examines a 1920s relationship with 21st century issues. "Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife is a comedic bonbon,"Â says Artistic Director Jim Petosa, "A period comedy of manners that manages to combine a gentle version of George Bernard Shaw's social provocations with Oscar Wilde's penchant for language that cannot help but delight."
The Constant Wife is a "drawing room"Â comedy set in the 1920s. This period piece is about wealthy people, who wear beautiful clothing, and live glamorous lives. Stage Director John Going (Lend Me A Tenor, The Heiress, and Morning's at Seven) explains, "Maugham is a wonderful storyteller. His dialogue is fabulous, genuinely clever and witty. Audiences will enjoy looking into a world of people who are privileged, rich, well dressed, and more sophisticated than us."Â
Constance Middleton is a calm, intelligent, and self-possessed wife of a successful London doctor, and she has decided to turn the other cheek when it comes to her husband's infidelity. When confronted by friends who are horrified by the trespass, she shocks them with her unsentimental perspective: the value in the marriage is not necessarily related to the romantic or sexual content of the relationship. But, she does decide to take action and establishes her own economic independence (which she considers the only real independence). After a year of successful employment, she pays her husband for room and board, and goes off on a romantic Italian vacation with a longtime admirer.
"Constance's actions,"Â remarks Going, "have nothing to do with revenge; she's not silly or petty. I think Maugham's intention is to show this woman with a sensible viewpoint, the viewpoint of equality for men and women, financially and sexually."Â The inequalities of men and women pointed out by Maugham, are still very relevant. "Today, we are used to women being financially secure, even though we are not completely there yet...but sexually, we still have a ways to go. As Maugham would support, what is good for the gander should be good for the goose."Â
The talented cast is a carefully selected group of local favorites and Broadway veterans. Playing the stylishly reserved Constance Middleton, JULIE-ANN ELLIOTT returns after a busy year in Olney's Ibsen Experiment 2006 as Hedda in Hedda Gabler and Catherine Stockman in An Enemy of the People. MICHAEL MCKENZIE, playing Elliott's husband John Middleton, has appeared on Broadway in Waiting in the Wings (with Lauren Bacall), The Man Who Came to Dinner (with Nathan Lane), and Eastern Standard. The nosey bulter, Bentley, will be played by BOB BARR. Regionally, Barr has been seen in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Measure for Measure at Folger Theatre and Black Milk at Studio Theatre. Two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee ALLYSON CURRIN, who was last seen at Olney in Design for Living, will play Elliott's younger sister, Martha Culver. Playing Constance's feminist mentor, Barbara Fawcett, will be HELEN HEDMAN, who last appeared in The Miracle Worker, Omnium Gatherum, and Piaf (Helen Hayes Award nomination). JAMES SLAUGHTER will play the jealous Mortimer Durham, who breaks the news of the affair to Constance. Slaughter has worked at Olney with Going many times including Morning's at Seven, Blithe Spirit, and Design for Living. John's flighty mistress with be played by ASHLEY WEST (Mary-Louise Durham) where she previously worked with Going at Olney in 2003's Charley's Aunt. West's Off-Broadway credits include Counsellor at Law with Tony Award-winner John Rubinstein at Theatre at St. Clements. JOHN WOJDA will play the impeccably dashing Bernard Kersal. Wojda has appeared on Broadway in Present Laughter, Merchant of Venice, Two Shakespearean Actors, and Macbeth. Playing Constance's mother, NANCY ROBINETTE, will be making her Olney debut. Most recently, Robinette had appeared locally in The Beaux Strategem at The Shakespeare Theatre, State of the Union at Ford's Theatre, and Frozen at Studio Theatre.
The design team will put together a 1920's drawing room comedy, lead by Going, who is also Olney's Associate Artistic Director. Co-author of two books on theatrical costumes, Costume Designer LIZ COVEY will give audiences the feel of how the rich and glamorous lived in the late 1920s. Designing the set, JAMES WOLK, will create a drawing room out of air and light, making a blank canvas for the lush costumes and actors to stand out against. Wolk, who previously designed last year's Anything Goes and The Heiress, for Olney, will make this clean look out of light colored wood, white upholstery, and off-white walls. Adding to the fresh and open stage is award-winning Lighting Designer DENNIS PARICHY. Designing several shows for the director in the past, Parichy most recently collaborated with Going on Heartbreak House at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and has many Broadway credits including Talley's Folly and Crimes of the Heart. ELIZABETH VAN DEN BERG (Dialect Coach) will help to place audiences with the upper crust of British society. Van den Berg most recently worked at Olney as Assistant Director for In The Mood (dir. Jim Petosa). JARETT C. PISANI (Sound Designer) is Olney's audio engineer whose recent sound design work include last year's The Foreigner, In The Mood, An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, The Elephant Man, and The Heiress. Rounding out the design team is ANNE NESMITH (Wig Designer), who is the resident Wig and Makeup Designer for Baltimore Opera Company and last designed The Heiress for Olney Theatre.
Popular British playwright and novelist, W. Somerset Maugham is credited as the highest-paid author in the world in the 1930s. Maugham was admired by many great authors such as the highly discerning Alfred Hitchcock who, in a famous interview, claimed that Maugham was one of the few fiction writers he enjoyed reading for leisure. Hitchcock's 1936 spy film, The Secret Agent was based on Maugham's Ashenden. This novel is also considered a forerunner to many later spy novels of the 20th century, including the James Bond stories of Ian Fleming.
Maugham's short stories not only inspired writers of the early twentieth century, but have recently been adapted to the big screen. The Razor's Edge, about a WWI veteran's spiritual journey, was made into a 1984 feature film starring Bill Murray, and, in 2006, Maugham's novel The Painted Veil was made into a movie starring Naomi Watts. -- www.olneytheatre.org
Posted January 31st, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
