Sheppey: A Play in Three Acts

by W. Somerset Maugham

a play in three acts

Genres: Plays

157 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.

His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.

Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.

During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.

At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.

Reviews

[Pooya Kiani · Rating 3 out of 5]

عام‌پسندِ خوب.

[Alborz Taheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

حس می کنم کار خوبی کردم که بعد از یک رمان ، یک نمایشنامه هم از موآم خوندم . روند نمایشنامه یک روند خیلی خوب و منطقیه و دغدغه‌های موآم هم تقریباً داره مشخص میشه . دین ، مذهب ، خدا ، سبک زندگی و مفاهیمی از این دست رو می توان در هر دو کار موآم دید .
با این نمایشنامه بیش از پیش علاقه‌مند شدم تا " پای‌بندی‌های انسانی " رو هم از موآم بخونم .

[Rayan Farzad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in Persian. Horrifyingly awful translation. Not Mr. Maugham's first-class work.

[Elahe · Rating 3 out of 5]

پرده اول رو خیلی بیشتر دوست داشتم و صحنه آخرش به نظرم ملودرامتیک بود. توی کلیتش تمثیل مذهبی درشتی بود که برام دلپذیر نبود ولی جزئیات جالبی داشت.

[Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheppey is the swan-song of a ripe 59 year old Maugham reflecting on goodness, Christianity, and conformity. In short, Sheppey, the protagonist, a poor and ageing barber wins £8000 in a sweepstakes, which is something like £100k today. Initially he's content, as most would be, lavishing his family and padding his retirement with a little cottage on the coast (The actual Isle of Sheppey). But a prostitute, whom he often dines with after work, gives him a lesson in reality when she reveals to him that she can't afford to feed herself or take the bus home. He starts noticing the suffering around him and now that he has won a small fortune, feels that an intervention is finally something surmountable. He becomes determined to give away his newfound funds and as his generosity waxes, his family's patience wanes.

I particularly enjoyed the exchange between Sheppey, who becomes a pious Christian practitioner, and his Christian-in-word-alone family as they try to refute Sheppey's literal rendering of Christian commandments (i.e., give to the poor, love one another).

Florrie: You're barmy
Sheppey: (smiling) Because I want to live like Jesus?
Florrie: Well, who ever heard of anyone wanting to live like Jesus in this time of day? I think it's just blasphemous.

While highlighting the discrepancy between nominal and practiced Christianity, this play is not really a polemic on religious hypocrisy per se. Sure, Maugham seems to be asking to what end should the tenets of Christendom (i.e., brotherly love, charity) be followed, and if entirely, why are we Christians not all living and acting like Jesus? But there's a lot here about conformity. The family is mortified that Sheppey might compromise their social standings by daring to live the gospel in a society which is Christian in name alone. Sheppey, much like Jesus was, is a non-conformist because he is sane in a mad society, he is selfless among the selfish, a man of action in a world of words. SPOILER ALERT: it doesn't end well for him either.

Ernie: Sanity means doing what everybody else does, and thinking what everybody else thinks. That the whole foundation of democracy. If the individual isn't prepared to act the same way as everybody else there's only one place for him and that's the lunatic asylum.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheppey, a hairdresser's assistant, wins over eight thou- sand pounds in the Irish Sweep and decides to give away all the money to charity. His family, who have made grand plans, are flabbergasted and think he is crazy. Specialists are consulted and they agree. Dr. Jervis says no sane man gives away all his money to the poor. "A sane man takes money from the poor." Dr. Ennismore regards all philanthropy as the direct result of repressed homosexuality. With proper education of the young, he says, all philanthropy could be stamped out of the country. They are about to shut Sheppey up in a lunatic asylum when suddenly he is found
dead in his chair.

Maugham called this play a sardonic comedy. The last scene is not very pleasing.

It's too bad that Sheppey popped off just when he was "going to do a bit of good in the world."

[Dylan Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this play.