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Smith (play)
Smith is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written when he was becoming a successful dramatist. The play was first seen in London in 1909.
In the play, Thomas Freeman returns after years abroad to his sister Rose, and gets to know the fashionable social set who meet at her home; he eventually finds that the parlourmaid has the most merit of any in the household.
After the success of Lady Frederick, his plays Mrs Dot and Jack Straw were soon staged. Maugham wrote: "Their success made the managers eager to take other plays... "; three subsequent plays "were written on commission to suit certain actors, Penelope for Marie Tempest, Smith for Miss Marie Lohr and Robert Loraine and The Land of Promise for Irene Vanbrugh.... They established me as the most popular dramatist of the day".
The play was first produced in London at the Comedy Theatre on 30 September 1909. In New York the play was first seen on 5 September 1910 at the Empire Theatre, running until December 1910.
Principal members of the cast in 1909 at the Comedy Theatre:
The following captions accompany a montage of photographs from the original production of the play:
In 1909, in the drawing-room of the flat in Kensington of Herbert Dallas-Baker KC and his wife Rose, Rose is playing bridge with her well-dressed guests Emily Chapman, Mrs Otto Rosenberg and Algernon Peppercorn. Rose is expecting her brother Thomas Freeman to arrive from Rhodesia, where he has a farm. After the game, they talk about Emily, while she is out of the room: Tom once proposed to her, and by now she may have missed her chance of marriage. Tom arrives. He went to Rhodesia after losing everything in the slump, and, having made some money, is here for six weeks, intending to find a wife. They talk about the parlourmaid Smith, who appears briefly in the room, and speculate on whom she might marry.
In the dining-room, there is a series of conversations. Fletcher, the porter of the flats, talks to Smith. He hopes they would get married, but Smith is not interested. Later, Smith and Tom talk: he learns about her background, and wonders whom she might marry. He talks to Dallas-Baker, saying that he suspects Rose and Algy see too much of each other. Algy tells Tom about himself. He does not work, saying "Work is merely the refuge from boredom of the unintellectual". Rose enters: she is angry with Tom, after Dallas-Baker told her about Tom's suspicions. Finally, Emily and Tom talk alone, years after they last met: he says "We were both very unfit for marriage in those days". He proposes again.
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Smith (play)
Smith is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written when he was becoming a successful dramatist. The play was first seen in London in 1909.
In the play, Thomas Freeman returns after years abroad to his sister Rose, and gets to know the fashionable social set who meet at her home; he eventually finds that the parlourmaid has the most merit of any in the household.
After the success of Lady Frederick, his plays Mrs Dot and Jack Straw were soon staged. Maugham wrote: "Their success made the managers eager to take other plays... "; three subsequent plays "were written on commission to suit certain actors, Penelope for Marie Tempest, Smith for Miss Marie Lohr and Robert Loraine and The Land of Promise for Irene Vanbrugh.... They established me as the most popular dramatist of the day".
The play was first produced in London at the Comedy Theatre on 30 September 1909. In New York the play was first seen on 5 September 1910 at the Empire Theatre, running until December 1910.
Principal members of the cast in 1909 at the Comedy Theatre:
The following captions accompany a montage of photographs from the original production of the play:
In 1909, in the drawing-room of the flat in Kensington of Herbert Dallas-Baker KC and his wife Rose, Rose is playing bridge with her well-dressed guests Emily Chapman, Mrs Otto Rosenberg and Algernon Peppercorn. Rose is expecting her brother Thomas Freeman to arrive from Rhodesia, where he has a farm. After the game, they talk about Emily, while she is out of the room: Tom once proposed to her, and by now she may have missed her chance of marriage. Tom arrives. He went to Rhodesia after losing everything in the slump, and, having made some money, is here for six weeks, intending to find a wife. They talk about the parlourmaid Smith, who appears briefly in the room, and speculate on whom she might marry.
In the dining-room, there is a series of conversations. Fletcher, the porter of the flats, talks to Smith. He hopes they would get married, but Smith is not interested. Later, Smith and Tom talk: he learns about her background, and wonders whom she might marry. He talks to Dallas-Baker, saying that he suspects Rose and Algy see too much of each other. Algy tells Tom about himself. He does not work, saying "Work is merely the refuge from boredom of the unintellectual". Rose enters: she is angry with Tom, after Dallas-Baker told her about Tom's suspicions. Finally, Emily and Tom talk alone, years after they last met: he says "We were both very unfit for marriage in those days". He proposes again.