CAPSULE REVIEW : Cast Gets Credit for Breathing Life Into Maugham’s ‘Circle’

Rex Harrison’s return to Broadway in a revival of W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle” on Monday night was met today with considerable critical praise. But, for the most part, said the New York critics, it was a case of Harrison and the other actors improving on a tired, dated play.

“Star performances can enliven the creakiest of drawing room comedies, making the artificial and old-fashioned seem charming, funny and even poignant,” said the Associated Press’ Michael Kuchwara. “That is the case at the Ambassador Theater where Harrison, Stewart Granger and particularly Glynis Johns resuscitate . . . a hit from the 1921-22 Broadway season. If it weren’t for this stylish trio of veterans, the play . . . would be little more than lightweight stuff.”

Newsday critic Linda Winer said the play “creaked and wheezed a lot and managed to charm quite a bit.”

“Johns’ lilting, autumnal voice is perfect; so is her fragile sense of duty. Harrison has raised crotchetiness to a great art. . . . Granger has charm in abundance,” Howard Kissel wrote in the Daily News.

When Johns and Harrison argue, The New York Times’ Frank Rich said, “one feels her bitterness even as one exults in the verbal chamber music created by two of the most distinctive speaking voices in the English theater.”

Critic Clive Barnes, writing in the New York Post, praised the whole cast, especially Harrison’s “stately and ineffable charm tinged with a very correct arrogance.”