The Circle

The Circle: a Comedy in Three Acts is a play by W. Somerset Maugham. It was first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London on 3 March 1921, and has been revived several times in the West End and on Broadway. The play, which caused some outrage among a small minority of playgoers at the time of the premiere, depicts a young married woman contemplating leaving her husband for another man, and looking to an elderly peer and his partner, who eloped thirty years earlier, for advice. Original cast Lord Porteus – Allan Aynesworth Clive Champion-Cheney – E. Holman Clark Arnold Champion-Cheney, MP (Clive's son, a man of about thirty-five) – Ernest Thesiger Edward Luton (a planter in the Federated Malay States) – Leon Quartermaine Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney (Arnold's mother) – Lottie Venne Mrs Shenstone – Toni Edgar-Bruce Elizabeth Champion-Cheney (Arnold's wife) – Fay Compton Source: The Times.