Lady Frederick

In the play, Lady Frederick is an Irish widow, seriously in debt; she must deal with suitors who have various motives for proposing marriage, and with the man with whom she once had an affair.

The answer was obvious: the adventuress with a heart of gold; titled, for the sex is peculiarly susceptible to the glamour of romance; the charming spendthrift and the wanton of impeccable virtue; the clever manager who twists all and sundry round her little finger and the kindly and applauded wit....[1]The play was refused by many managers.

Maugham wrote: "... it had in the third act a scene in which the heroine had to appear dishevelled, with no make-up on, and have her hair done while she arranged her face before the audience.

[2] In New York the play was first seen on 9 November 1908 at the Hudson Theatre; it featured Ethel Barrymore as Lady Frederick and Bruce McRae as Paradine Fouldes.

A reviewer in The Daily Chronicle wrote: Lady Frederick is just a conventional, tricky comedy, not quite clever enough at its own game.... One fancies that Mr. Maugham’s real hope was that Lady Frederick, as a buoyant, brilliant, large-hearted, impulsive Irishwoman, would, by sheer force of personality, carry everything before her and dazzle the audience into delight.

Extremely intelligent and alert as she always is, but fearfully nervous, Miss Ethel Irving under-played nearly every scene, and seemed afraid of just the moments that she should have attacked....[4] A reviewer in The Sunday Times wrote: It is not quite a lifelike comedy, nor is it free from the artifice and calculation which was customary in the days of the 'well-made play'.... Mr. Maugham is by nature not a comedy-writer: he has the mind dramatic.... Miss Ethel Irving, all mobility, impulse, emotion as the Irish widow, has never acted so well.

She made the audience love Lady Frederick at first sight, she maintained the interest to the last moment...."[2]Principal members of the cast on 26 October 1907 at the Royal Court Theatre:[5] The scene is a drawing-room of the Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo.

Lady Frederick tells the Admiral that her brother Gerald wants to marry his daughter Rose.

He has a long conversation with her about her possibly marrying Charles; saying "I'm going to play this game with my cards on the table," she replies "You're never so dangerous as when you pretend to be frank."

Eventually Lady Frederick, saying "you've not seen my cards yet," produces love-letters from Charles's late father to a singer at the Folies Bergère.

Lady Frederick tells her she regards her as one of her best friends; flattered, the dressmaker refuses to accept the cheque she starts to write.