The Letter - a play by W. Somerset Maugham
As the curtain opens we see the sitting-room of the Crosbies’ house on a plantation in the Malay Peninsula in the 1920’s. A shot is fired and Geoffrey Hammond staggers onto the veranda. Leslie Crosbie fires three more shots at Hammond, killing him. Leslie sends one of her Chinese servants to fetch the Assistant District Officer and get a message through to her husband, Robert, in Singapore, telling him of the “terrible accident”. When he arrives, Leslie tells him that Hammond tried to rape her and that’s why she shot him. In the finest detail, Leslie tells how Hammond arrived at their house, made himself a drink, watched her work on her lace and started complimenting her and flirting with her, claiming to be in love with her. She reminds the Assistant District Officer that she and her husband have known Hammond for over seven years, having taken care of him through his initial illness.
She continues to describe the scene of the attempted rape and how, in self-defence, she used her husband’s gun to stop Hammond. The ADO, Withers, is terribly impressed with Leslie’s calm nerves and her ability to answer each question put to her by himself and Joyce, a lawyer.
Robert Crosbie tells his wife of his undying love for her. She begs him not to believe anything people may say against her. “Of course not. What should they say?” “How can I tell? People are so unkind. They might easily say that he would never have made advances to me if I hadn’t led him on.”
Leslie is taken to Singapore, charged with murder and put into prison awaiting trial. Her husband suffers terribly with worry. He is shocked to hear that Hammond had been living with a Chinese woman for the past 8 months. Robert says that if he had known, he never would have allowed him to visit in his home.
Leslie’s Chinese lawyer tells Joyce that a letter, written by Leslie to Hammond on the day of his death, has come to his attention. This startles Joyce as Leslie had said that she had had no communication with Hammond for several weeks before his death. In this letter Leslie tells Hammond that Robert will be away on that evening and she begs him to come and visit her.
When confronted with the text of the letter, Leslie denies having written it, claiming it can only be a forgery. She later admits having written and claims she asked him to come because she was planning a surprise for her husband’s birthday. Later she admits that she and Hammond had been lovers and he had left her for the Chinese woman. Joyce promises to try to buy the letter from the Chinese woman.
Leslie comes through the trial well, is acquitted and comes home. Her husband tells her that he has come to hate the plantation and wants to take up an offer of a new plantation in Sumatra. Joyce has to admit that he used ten thousand dollars of Crosbie’s money to buy the letter. Robert demands to see the letter and, due to this, Leslie has to admit that Hammond had been her lover for years. She claims that she didn’t want to love him, but she couldn’t help herself. Her husband is devastated.
The play takes a jump into the past, to the evening that Hammond came to see Leslie. She begs him not to leave her, swearing that she'll tell everyone about his Chinese woman if he does.
Once again, we are in the present, and Leslie promises Joyce that she will spend the rest of her life trying to make it up to her husband although she is still in love with the man she murdered.
Elizabeth Unger
For Services Rendered - a play by W. Somerset Maugham
The name of this play, For Services Rendered, concerns the military services rendered to the British Commonwealth during the first world war. All the characters have been directly or indirectly affected by the war and their lives will never be the same again. This social study portrays the disappointments and bitterness of the members of the Ardsley family and their friends. The only exception seems to the father, Leonard, a country solicitor who was too old to have been drafted and still believes in patriotism and honour. His wife, Charlotte, who is dying of cancer and refuses treatment, is only partially aware of the pain being suffering by those around her.
Her eldest daughter, Ethel, married Howard Bartlett, a local tenant-farmer who was socially far beneath her. Howard’s glory days were during the war when he was “an officer and a gentleman”. Wearing a uniform and being a hero let him gave any girls he wanted and though he has been married to Ethel for over 15 years, he still dreams of the good old days. Ethel tries not to admit it, but Howard, his drinking and his farmer’s life is a terrible disappointment to her but she “made her bed and she’ll have to lie in it”.
Sidney, the Ardsley’s oldest son, had also been an officer in the war. While many of his friends and fellow soldiers died, he has been blinded in battle. He spends his time knitting, playing piquet and chess and wondering if being killed in battle hadn’t been bitter than being blinded.
His sister, Eva, now over 35, is devoting her life to her brother because her fiancé was killed in the war. But her discontent is easy to see and she sets all her hopes in Collie Stralton, around her age and a former commander in the Royal Navy. He is one of many officers who was no longer needed after the war and has been let go with 1000 pounds “for services rendered”. He has invested this in a garage and workshop but has no real training and no sense of business. Collie is not only bankrupt, he is arrested for writing bad checks. Eva offers him her money in exchange for marriage. Collie, however, commits suicide which pushes Eva over the edge into insanity. Lois, the youngest daughter, 26, still hopes to find a man who’ll love and marry her. The only men who want her are her brother-in-law, Howard, and Wilfred Cedar, a much older and married man. He claims to be in love with Lois, gives her presents, and convinces her to run off with him, in exactly the same way as he had done with his second wife, Gwen, who he is leaving now. He is a wealthy man who could easily have helped Collie with his financial difficulties, thus saving his life, but he didn’t. The play ends with Eva’s insanity, Mrs. Ardsley’s approaching death, Lois’ imminent departure and Mr. Ardsley going on about how ”very nice it is to have a cup of tea by one’s own fireside and surrounded by one’s family. If you come to think of it none of us have anything very much to worry about. This old England of ours isn’t done yet and I for one believe in it and all it stands for.” Eva, in her insanity, sings “God save our gracious King!” while the others look in horror-struck surprise.
“Home and Beauty” is a farce which takes place in 1918. Victoria was happily married to William who tragically fell in the War. After one year of appropriate mourning, during which she gave birth to William’s son, she married Frederick. He had been William’s best friend and is, like William, a Major. Victoria and Frederick have recently had a baby.
At the beginning of the play Victoria’s biggest problems are the lack of coal which means she can only have a fire in the children’s room and her bedroom and the fact that the cook has left. While having a manicure, Victoria explains that she adored her first husband but that she’s just as fond of her second one. “Of course, I should never survive it if anything happened to my present husband, but if anything did - touch wood, you know I couldn’t help myself, I’d just have to marry again, and I know I’d love my third husband just as much as I loved the other two!”
While recovering from the strain of the manicure Victoria receives a visit from Mr. Leicester Paton, a ship builder who is able to wangle almost anything one wants. She flirts with him outrageously.
Soon after, Frederick comes home, announcing that William, Victoria’s first husband, will be arriving in a few minutes. And then the chaos is complete.
It seems that William had mistakenly been declared dead. He had, in fact, been wounded and taken by German soldiers. No one can bear to tell him that Victoria and Frederick are not only married but have a child as well. The rest of Act I and Act II are full of misunderstandings and confusion about which of the two men will step aside or “do the honourable thing”. Both of them come to the conclusion that being married to Victoria, as lovely as she is, is not such a wonderful thing.
In Act III Victoria comes up with the solution to this problem by announcing that she plans to divorce both of them and marry Paton, who is far wealthier and can take much better care of her. Neither of her husbands are very distressed by this turn of events but it must be handled well.
Victoria’s solicitor, Mr. A.B. Raham, arrives to go through the necessary steps for divorce. In the end adultery is the only grounds for divorce which would be fast enough. Mr. Raham employs Miss Monmorency, a woman of about 55, as “the other woman” and she suggest her friends, Mrs. Onslow Jervis, a clergyman’s widow, as the other “other woman”.
The arrangements are completed and husbands one and two bid their farewells as Victoria asks both of them to return the various presents she had given them as she’ll be needing them for husband number three.
- Quote paper
- Elizabeth Unger (Author), 2000, The Letter - a play by W. Somerset Maugham, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/100048
