Sunday 23 December 2012

Somerset Maugham "Theatre"



Everyone wants to know how a cinema or theater star looks like in everyday life. Do they really fall in love, suffer, read newspapers?

Somerset Maugham is a writer who miraculously describes female characters (Tiare in "Moon and Sixpence" or Ata of the same novel), but he is not too fond of putting women at the center of his works. The image of the actress, Julia Lambert, from the novel "Theater" is quite unique.

The answer to the question: “where do the actress end and a real woman begin?” will not be received. Only in a few episodes a mocking, able to speak vulgarly, mischievous "another Julia" looks at us from under her mask, but then again she hides somewhere in the corner of her dressing room. It is interesting what Roger, her son, thinks of her: "Sometimes I think that when you do not play, I can go to your room and find that it is empty, you simply do not exist."

Do you think fans and admirers want a real woman? I
n literature we encountered the phenomenon where a man starts living with an actress, but soon keeping her close to himself becomes boring (Zerbinetta from "Captain Fracasse" of Theophile Gautier runs away from the grand seigneur realizing that he does not love her, but her characters). So Julia is perhaps right that she does not remove the mask from her face.

Her assistant, Evie, a middle-aged London cockney - for whom Julia is transparent as glass -  sees everything, but does not criticize or comment, only utters sometimes : "Well, well" and wipes her nose. For everyone else it is hard to imagine the true motives of Ms. Lambert’s actions.

Did the young accountant Tom Fennel fall in love with a woman? Oh, no. While Julia looks marvelous and no one would give her more than 30 years, the main thing is his vanity - what a woman was he able to conquer!

"Do not touch idols, their gilding remains on your fingers", says an old truth. Tom begins to lose interest in Julia. But she discovers unexpectedly that she is seriously in love with him. Oh, the love of a woman over the age of forty! How tragic it is, if the beloved man is young! Julia tries to throw her feelings on stage. But her husband (the best looking gentleman in London, who manages not to notice anything, though the affair unfolds under his nose) picks an overlap???. "You overact - he tells her - you work on cheap effects." Her truth shown on stage is not convincing in real life. How ironic.


After resting with her mother where she plays the role of a respectable daughter visiting relatives, Julia hopes that passion will not return. But love is unpredictable - she hears Tom’s voice over the phone and realizes that she is unable to cope with her feelings.

How can a woman get rid of love and jealousy? Only by seeking revenge! Tom presents his new passion, Avice Crichton, to the director, Michael Gosselyn, husband of Julia, who, flattered by the débutante, rehearses with Avice one of the major role in a new play. Avice is younger and prettier, but in the theater, everything is about talent, and Julia has no equals there. In addition, an experienced actress is always able to shift the attention to herself ... What followed next was not a failure of spectacle, Julia is not an enemy of her theater, but this was a great demonstration for Tom - which woman is worth what!

How he rushes to win back the love of Julia! How he regrets that he got carried away by a girl who is nobody! However he is absolutely not interesting to both Julia -woman and Julia-actress. The scene is played. And on the stage a line is drawn under the passion.

Theater is first of all!


More interesting things about women and beauty in my blog Notes about styling

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