A new revival of The Circle is a reminder of a dramatist who smuggled vital messages into broad crowdpleasers Never trust what dramatists say about themselves. Noël Coward spent decades disclaiming he had any purpose beyond entertainment while giving us finger-wagging lectures. The case of Somerset Maugham is remarkably similar. He once wrote that "prose drama is one of the lesser arts, like wood-carving or dancin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AM on April 24, 2023