Playhouse breathes new life into ‘Constant Wife’

Tom Titus

There’s no play so old, dated and talky that it can’t be resurrected

to high effect by an imaginative director and a talented cast. Take

“The Constant Wife” at the Laguna Playhouse, for example.

W. Somerset Maugham’s comedy about genteel strife on the marital

battlefield dates back to 1927, and it’s doubtful that it would

succeed were it written today. However, as a period piece it was

ahead of its time, and played in the upper-class London of that era,

it works marvelously even in the 21st Century.

The theme of Maugham’s pungent but very proper tale is adultery,

and what is to be done about it once it becomes common knowledge. Its

premise is that a wife may be aware that her husband is cheating, but

until it’s brought rudely to her attention, she has the option of

carrying on as if nothing were amiss.

This is what Maugham’s heroine, Constance Middleton, chooses to

do, even though her husband’s illicit love affair involves her own

best friend. Only after the friend’s blustering husband exposes the

tryst in what could have been a very messy moment does the play’s

temperature change. It’s still a comedy, but the stakes are

considerably higher.

Director Andrew Barnicle has mounted a splendidly entertaining

rendition of this ancient drawing room comedy, repeatedly stretching

the dramatic tension almost to the limit before reining it in with a

comical riposte, often from an unlikely source. The characters (with

the exception of a scene-stealing butler) are the soul of propriety,

but their acid-tongued observances resemble those of an Oscar Wilde

play.

In the title role, Devon Raymond delivers an exquisite performance

as a woman married 15 years, who has long since fallen out of love

(as has her husband), but has no reason to rock the economic boat.

Beautifully dressed and coiffed, Raymond is not only constant, but

continually in control of her situation.

Kevin Symons plays her physician husband with the proper stiffness

and decorum, but raises his emotional temperature a notch or two in a

richly rewarding final role reversal scene. Time Winters as an old

flame whose ardor hasn’t gone out is engaging in his pursuit of

Constance’s affections.

A sterling supporting performance is delivered by Kirsten Potter

as Constance’s coltish younger sister who stirs the plot as it

thickens. Mimi Cozzens is a treat as the girls’ mother, whose

startling views on the institution of marriage are bound to rattle a

few cages.

Stephanie Cushna gives a richly comic performance as the object of

Symons’ extramarital affections, while Catherine O’Connor decorates

the set nicely as Constance’s friend and prospective business

partner.

The bubbling plot comes to a boil late in the first act when Tom

Shelton as Cushna’s cuckolded husband upsets the neatly arranged

applecart. Shelton also doubles as the goofy butler, who’s usually a

step behind in announcing a visitor.

The massive living-room setting designed by Dwight Richard Odle is

simply magnificent, a stately throwback to an elegant era. Julie

Keen’s 1920s costumes are beautifully created, as is the soft

lighting of Paulie Jenkins.

“The Constant Wife” is one of the lighter offerings from the

author of such serious fare as “The Razor’s Edge” and “The Letter,”

and the Laguna Playhouse production tickles our fancy today probably

even more than the original did for 1927 audiences.