Relationships Have Them Going in Circles

“May I come in through the window, or shall I have myself announced by a supercilious flunky?”

This is the first line spoken by Clive Champion-Cheney (no relation to Dick), the cuckolded husband in W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle.” The play offers many lines along that line. Which brings us to Paxton Whitehead.

In the right role, Whitehead is the soul of English privilege made not just palatable, but wonderful. Blessed with a comically squinty gaze and a highly furrow-able brow, Whitehead remains best known for his rich, rumbling Sensurround voice, the one with a bass knob that goes to 11, like the amplifier in “This Is Spinal Tap.”

As Clive, Whitehead is excellent stage company. And he has excellent stage company in South Coast Repertory’s deeply enjoyable staging of Maugham’s deeply shallow yet surprisingly hardy 1921 drawing-room comedy.

Whitehead’s chief cohorts are Carole Shelley, as the vain peacock Lady Kitty, and William Biff McGuire as Porteous, the crusty lord who 30 years ago ran off with Clive’s wife--Kitty, that is--sacrificing his own political career in the bargain. Clive hasn’t seen them in 30 years. “The Circle” brings these three back into the same orbit, as guests of the Dorset manor house preserved, obsessively, by Clive and Kitty’s son, Arnold (John Hines).

What happened 30 years ago is happening again, this time to Arnold. His wife, Elizabeth (Nancy Bell), described by Maugham as “a very pretty creature,” has lost her heart to family friend Teddie Luton (Douglas Weston), who has no title and limited prospects but burns for Elizabeth. Will the younger generation make the same mistakes as the elder?

“The Circle” doesn’t circulate much, so that’s enough plot. Those who know Maugham from his novels “Of Human Bondage” and “The Razor’s Edge,” or the tortured yet cloaked sensual conflicts of the short story “Rain,” may be taken aback by this play’s pip-pip, tennis anyone? surface.

For a time, though, Maugham was king of high comedy on London’s West End. Years later, the writer characterized himself as standing “in the very first row of the second-raters.” His best plays, “The Circle” and “The Constant Wife,” don’t dispute that description.

A Conflicted Discussion of Marriage

Yet “The Circle” in particular fascinates, as both a commercial relic from a pre-Noel Coward era--it predates Coward’s “The Vortex” by three years--and a highly conflicted discussion of marriage. Maugham’s later scenes hinge on the question of Elizabeth’s destiny, and they’re more arbitrary than provocative. The narrative mechanics grow ever noisier in “The Circle.” But Maugham, whose bisexuality made his own marital issues a little tougher than anything afoot here, nonetheless had sure theatrical instincts. “The Circle,” drawn well, satisfies still.

Director Warner Shook’s production is sure and steady. One look at scenic designer Ralph Funicello’s aqua Georgian drawing room elicits a sigh of contentment from the audience. You’re in “Masterpiece Theatre” land, adjoining Merchant-Ivoryville.

Shelley’s Lady Kitty comes on awfully strong in Act 1; the actress’ energy flies all over the place, intentionally, as if Shelley were competing with costume designer Hicklin’s desperate-flapper frocks. But she locates the right dramatic stuff in the key later scenes, modulating her performance beautifully to suit McGuire’s exemplary work as Lord Porteous. McGuire can do wonders with a simple rejoinder, such as “ugh.” (On Broadway, as a tight-lipped man of secrets in Horton Foote’s “Young Man From Atlanta,” McGuire gave a Zen-like performance I’d describe as perfect.)

Bell’s Elizabeth is a smart and hearty creation; her technique is sharper here than it was two years ago in SCR’s “The Philanderer.” And her “Philanderer” co-star Weston, here playing Teddie, is easy and likable as always.

As Arnold, the man with a “passion for decorating houses,” Hines comes off as almost eerily serene. When he ejects his rival, however, at the close of the second of the play’s three acts, he does so with surprising force.

Everything’s wrapped in Michael Roth’s score, featuring both original material and some Gershwin standards, arranged in tea-dance fashion. Very, very nice.

As is the whole show.

*

“The Circle,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ends Oct. 7. $27-$52. (714) 708-5555. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Carole Shelley: Lady Kitty

William Biff McGuire: Porteous

Paxton Whitehead: Clive

Nancy Bell: Elizabeth

Rebecca Dines: Ann

John Hines: Arnold

Douglas Weston: Edward Luton

John-David Keller: Footman

Travis Vadin: Footman

Written by W. Somerset Maugham. Directed by Warner Shook. Scenic design by Ralph Funicello. Costumes by Walker Hicklin. Lighting by York Kennedy. Original music/sound design by Michael Roth. Production manager Tom Aberger. Stage manager Scott Harrison.