When Constance Middleton discovers her best friend Marie Louise is having an affair with her husband, she says to her: Don’t mind me, help yourself dear, or as one of Noel Coward’s characters might have said: “I give him to you, freely and without rancour.”
At least, that seems to be her attitude. Later, we discover that Constance is developing a grand plan and that is the elegant denouement of this play.
It was written in 1926 by William Somerset Maughan and has been updated deliciously by Laura Wade who wrote the television version of Jilly Cooper’s Riders and the West End hit, Home, I’m Darling.
The performances here are exemplary. Every one of the cast has their character so well drawn, you know these people. Everyone has spot on comic timing – and, call me old fashioned, but what a joy to hear perfect diction on the stage. This really is a great night at the theatre.
Laura Wade’s script is incisive and funny. This is the portrait of a marriage. Constance has been married to John Middleton, a wealthy Harley Street surgeon, for 15 years. Their daughter has just gone away to school.
The play opens with Bentley, the upright and loyal butler sitting down to play the piano, a beguiling performance from Philip Rham, who creates a humourous creature without ever allowing him to lose his dignity.
A debate rages between the wonderful Sara Crowe as Constance’s worldly mother, Mrs Culver and the very polished Amy Vicary-Smith as Constance’s resolutely single sister, Martha. Should Constance be told that her husband is having an affair?
Martha (who has some marvellous speeches through the play – one winning its own round of applause) says Constance absolutely must know. Mrs Culver says nonsense – a man married for 15 years should be allowed to have a bit of fun. They all do it.
“Not Papa!” exclaims Martha. Crowe just adjusts her face and brings the house down.
When Martha suggests that Constance is unhappy, her mother’s answer is definitive: “She sleeps well, eats well, she is well and she is losing weight, how could a woman in that position not be happy?”
But soon the cat is out of the bag. Marie-Louise’s husband storms in with John’s cigarette case found under his wife’s pillow. This puts Constance in a pickle.
She has known of the affair for a year but didn’t want other people to know she knew. Now she has to make a decision.
Superb comic characterisation from both Jules Brown as Marie-Louise’s husband Mortimer, Jocasta King as the materialistic Marie Louise – and also Alex Mugnaioni as Bernard, the earnest-bachelor type, a bumbling character who has loved Constance since she was a girl and is only waiting only to step into the breach.
Martha is clear that Constance must leave John. Where do I go? Constance asks. I have no money. I’ll be living alone in two rooms …or at my mother’s, which is worse….” Kara Tointon is magnificent as the wronged wife who rises above everyone else’s machinations and is fooled by no one.
Life comes to the rescue. Constance will join Martha’s business venture – helping rich women choose lampshades and curtains.
The key to happiness is economic independence. Otherwise, she laments, the wife of a rich man is merely an ornament. Her role may be ostensibly to bring up their children and run the household but actually other people do that.
She also knows that an affair loses its charm when it’s no secret. What is missing from her husband’s marriage is a challenge. She is going to give him one that will occupy his mind.
With music by Jamie Cullem and directed by Tamara Harvey, who directed the RSC’s magnificent Pericles at The Swan, which transferred to Chicago, this is a fast-paced, compelling production full of wit and grace.
The Constant Wife is at Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday, March 28.
