 First edition (UK) | |
| Author | William Somerset Maugham |
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| Language | English |
| Publisher | William Heinemann (UK) Doubleday Doran (US) |
Publication date | 1937 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
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Theatre is a novel by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, first published in 1937 by William Heinemann (UK) and Doubleday Doran (US). [1] [2]
The novel describes a successful actress and her husband, a theatre manager; her life and career is disturbed by a stormy affair with a young accountant.
In the preface to a collected edition, Maugham writes that during the thirty years between the productions of his first play and his last play, he knew "a great number of distinguished actresses. Julia Lambert, the heroine of Theatre, is a portrait of none of them. I have taken a trait here and a trait there and sought to create a living person. Because I was not much affected by the glamour of the brilliant creatures I had known in the flesh I drew the creature of my fancy, I dare say, with a certain coolness. I think Julia is true to life.... I feel a great affection for her; I am not shocked by her naughtiness, nor scandalized by her absurdities...." [3]
Julia Lambert and Michael Gosselyn first meet when they are both in a theatre company in Liverpool; their relationship grows, and Julia suggests that he try theatre management, with her as leading lady. Michael proposes marriage. Michael, hired by an American manager, is then away for a year; his time in America is not a success. On his return, Julia and Michael marry.
During the First World War Michael is an officer, and regularly returns on leave. Julia is no longer in love with him. They have a baby, Roger.
Dolly de Vries, a rich widow who has a passion for the stage, and for Julia, finances Michael in theatre management. The play they choose, in which Michael is happy to have a small role, is successful; they produce more plays, and buy the lease of a theatre in London. During the next few years Michael becomes complacent, and a bore; Julia becomes rich and successful.
Tom Fennell, an articled clerk with a firm of accountants, is auditing the accounts of Michael's theatre. The couple invites him for a meal at home; Tom later sends flowers to Julia at the theatre, and invites her to tea at his flat. Unexpectedly, the meeting leads to passion. The affair develops, and she buys him presents. He is invited for a fortnight at Julia and Michael's country house; Tom gets on well with Roger, who is a similar age, and Julia is disappointed that Tom spends most of his time with him, not with her; afterwards she sends Tom an insulting letter, but later they make up.
When Roger tells Julia that he and Tom had a couple of girls at Tom's flat, she is disappointed that Roger has grown up. Joan Denver, Roger's seducer, wants to be an understudy in a play, and Julia appraises her, disguising her contempt. Tom takes Julia to see Avice Crichton, whom he knows, in a play: she is beginning her career, and Tom wants her to have a part in Julia's next play. Julia regards her as a pretty but talentless actress; angry that Avice is using Tom to advance her career, she maliciously agrees to have Avice in her play.
She realises how much she still loves Tom, and, performing in her current play, she "put into it now all the agony of her spirit". Michael afterwards says she acted badly, and they decide she should rest for a while; she spends the summer with her mother and aunt in Saint-Malo, France.
During rehearsals for their next play Nowadays in the autumn, Avice Crichton is not good. Julia, to keep her in the play, suggests to Michael that he should help her with her part.
Roger, back from a few weeks in Austria, talks with Julia, unclear about his future. He says he does not know reality, because he has lived in a world of his parents' make-believe; he thinks Julia is nothing apart from her acting.
On the afternoon of the first night of Nowadays Julia goes to Tom's flat, but realises she no longer cares for him. During the play, she outclasses Avice Crichton and kills her performance, ruining Avice's career. Michael thinks it is because he had flirted with Avice. Julia does not go to the first night party, but dines alone at The Berkeley, triumphant. She thinks that actors are real and others are the raw material. "Roger says we don't exist. Why, it's only we who do exist.... They say acting is only make-believe. That make-believe is the only reality."
Theatre was adapted as a play of the same name by Guy Bolton; it was first seen at the Hudson Theatre in New York, and ran for 69 performances, from 12 November 1941 to 10 January 1942. It featured Cornelia Otis Skinner as Julia Lambert and Arthur Margetson as Michael Gosselyn. [4] That adaptation has also been produced as Larger Than Life. [5]
Adorable Julia , a German-language film of 1962 (original title Julia, du bist zauberhaft), was based on the play by Guy Bolton. It was directed by Alfred Weidenmann, and featured Lilli Palmer as Julia and Charles Boyer as Michael. [6]
Teatris (1978), a Latvian film based on the novel, was directed by Jānis Streičs. It featured Vija Artmane as Julia and Gunārs Cilinskis as Michael. [7]
Being Julia (2004), a film directed by István Szabó, was adapted by Ronald Harwood from the novel. It featured Annette Bening as Julia and Jeremy Irons as Michael. [8]
Wolfe, Graham. Theatre-Fiction in Britain From Henry James to Doris Lessing: Writing in the Wings. Routledge, 2019. (Chapter 3: "Somerset Maugham's Theatre for the Lonely Reader")
William Somerset Maugham was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories.
Liza of Lambeth (1897) was W. Somerset Maugham's first novel, which he wrote while he was a medical student and obstetric clerk at St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth, then a working-class district of London. It depicts the short life and death of Liza Kemp, an 18-year-old factory worker who lives with her aging mother in the fictional Vere Street off Westminster Bridge Road (real) in Lambeth.
The Razor's Edge is a 1944 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. The story begins through the eyes of Larry's friends and acquaintances as they witness his personality change after the war. His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune.
The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, first published on 15 April 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator providing a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. The story is, in part, based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin.
Of Human Bondage is a 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. The novel is generally agreed to be Maugham's masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although he stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography; though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention." Maugham, who had originally planned to call his novel Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a section of Spinoza's Ethics. The Modern Library ranked Of Human Bondage No. 66 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Up at the Villa is a 1941 novella by William Somerset Maugham about a young widow caught among three men: her suitor, her one-night stand, and her confidant. A fast-paced story, Up at the Villa incorporates elements of the crime and suspense novel.
Being Julia is a 2004 comedy-drama film directed by István Szabó and starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the novel Theatre (1937) by W. Somerset Maugham. The original film score was composed by Mychael Danna.
Cakes and Ale, or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930) is a novel by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham exposes the misguided social snobbery levelled at the character Rosie Driffield, whose frankness, honesty, and sexual freedom make her a target of conservative opprobrium. Her character is treated favourably by the book's narrator, Ashenden, who understands that she was a muse to the many artists who surrounded her, and who himself enjoyed her sexual favours.
Jennifer Ann Seagrove is an English actress. She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and first came to attention playing the lead in a television dramatisation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance (1985) and the film Local Hero (1983). She starred in the thriller Appointment with Death (1988) and William Friedkin's horror film The Guardian (1990). She later played Louisa Gould in Another Mother's Son (2017).
Frederic Michael Raphael FRSL is an American-born British novelist, biographer, journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays for Darling, Far from the Madding Crowd,Two for the Road, and Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut. Raphael rose to prominence in the early 1960s with the publication of several acclaimed novels, but most notably with the release of the John Schlesinger film Darling, starring Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde, a romantic drama set in Swinging London, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1966. Two years later he was nominated again in the same category, this time for his work on Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road, starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. Since the death of screenwriter D. M. Marshman Jr. in 2015, he is the earliest surviving recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the sole surviving recipient of the now retired BAFTA category of Best British Screenplay.
Sheppey (1933) was William Somerset Maugham's last play, written at the age of 59 and after he had reached distinction as a novelist and playwright. Maugham dedicated the book to Sir John Gielgud.
The Razor's Edge is a 1946 American drama film based on W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel of the same name. It stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, and Herbert Marshall, with a supporting cast including Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore, and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham. The film was directed by Edmund Goulding.
Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon was a French film director, script-writer, playwright and author.
Adorable Julia is a 1962 Austrian comedy film directed by Alfred Weidenmann and starring Lilli Palmer, Charles Boyer and Jean Sorel. It was entered into the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. It is based on the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham, and the subsequent play that Guy Bolton and Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon adapted from the novel.
For Services Rendered is a play by Somerset Maugham. First performed in London in 1932, the play is about the effects of World War I on an English family.
"The Unconquered" is a 1943 short story by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham. It was included in the 1947 collection of Maugham stories Creatures of Circumstance.
Lady Frederick is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written early in his career. The play was first seen in London in 1907, and was very successful, running for 422 performances. The title role was played by Ethel Irving. In New York it was first performed in 1908, with Lady Frederick played by Ethel Barrymore, who reprised her role in the play's film adaptation, The Divorcee.
The Mixture as Before is a collection of 10 short stories by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, first published by William Heinemann in 1940.
The playwright, novelist and short-story writer W. Somerset Maugham, was a prolific author from the late 19th century until the 1960s. Most of his earliest successes were for the theatre, but he gave up writing plays after 1932. Many of his plays have been adapted for broadcasting and the cinema, as have several of his novels and short stories. The New York Times commented in 1964, "There are times when one thinks that British television and radio would have to shut up shop if there were not an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories by Maugham to turn into 30-minute plays. One recalls, too, the long list of movies that have been made from his novels − Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge and the rest.
Smith is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written when he was becoming a successful dramatist. The play was first seen in London in 1909.
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