''The Bread-Winner'' (1930) is
William Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
's third-last
play
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
. It is a comedy in one continuous act, lasting about 2 hours, but with the curtain lowered twice to rest the audience.
Charles Battle has been 'hammered' in the London
Stock Exchange
A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...
, to the point where he may be bankrupted. Maugham keeps his audience ignorant of the disaster facing Charles for much of the play, at which point we learn what the effect would be on his wife and teenage son and daughter. Charles' good friend Alfred Granger and his wife and son and daughter, all of whom are a similar age to their Battle counterparts, fill the scenes in the Battles’ house at
Golders Green
Golders Green is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet in north London, northwest of Charing Cross. It began as a medieval small suburban linear settlement near a farm and public grazing area green, and dates to the early 19th century. It ...
in London.
The play was in written in 1930 and first produced by
Athole Stewart
Athole Chalmers Stewart (25 June 1879 – 18 October 1940) was a British stage and latterly film actor, often in authoritarian or aristocratic roles.
On stage, he played in the original production of Noël Coward's ''Hay Fever'' at the Ambassa ...
at the
Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. Opening in 1870, the theatre staged mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. The theatre was rebuilt twice, although each new buildin ...
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
on 30 September that year.
Ronald Squire
Ronald Launcelot Squire (25 March 1886 – 16 November 1958) was an English character actor.
Biography
Born in Tiverton, Devon, England, the son of an army officer, Lt.-Col. Frederick Squirl and his Irish-born wife Mary (Ronald's surname 'Squ ...
and
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily "Peggy" Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991) was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an early age to become ...
played Charles and Judy Battle. The title format for the Vaudeville playbill, as reproduced in ''
Who's Who in the Theatre
''Who's Who in the Theatre'' is a British reference work, first published in 1912 with sixteen new editions from then until its last issue in 1981.
The book was a successor to ''The Green Room Book'', of which four editions were published bet ...
'', (Seventh edition, 1933) is ''The Breadwinner''.
According to theatre archivist
Robert Tanitch (''Peggy Ashcroft'', Hutchinson, 1987, ), one of Peggy Ashcroft's lines, "Don't you know that since the war the amateurs have entirely driven the professionals out of business? No girl can make a decent living now by prostitution," was quoted so much by 'the gentlemen of the Press' that it was cut after the first night, the management anticipating rightly that the
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Households of the United Kingdom, Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Monarchy of the United Ki ...
would be paying the theatre a visit.
The play has survived the years and is one of a number of Maugham’s works that has been resurrected. In April 2013, it was revived at the
Orange Tree Theatre
The Orange Tree Theatre is a 180-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south-west London, which was built specifically as a theatre in the round. It is housed within a disused 1867 primary school, built in Victorian Gothic style.
Th ...
, Richmond, Surrey.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bread Winner
Plays by W. Somerset Maugham
1930 plays
Doubleday, Doran books
West End plays