The Complaisant Lover

A very civilized menage a trois is introduced following a dinner party. One of the guests is propositioned by the daughter of a visiting couple. He politely declines her, explaining that most of his affairs are with married women. After she leaves, the very lovely and charming hostess, whom we had met earlier, enters, and the shock is total: it is she who is the guest's mistress. They arrange an assignation abroad, and are nearly discovered when the husband arrives early. Greene's comic sense, in the portrait of a very confused bellboy, is a welcome relief at a very tense moment. Eventually, and in a scene fraught with suspense, the husband learns of the infidelity. The husband and lover meet; neither wants to lose the wife. They make the best of the situation by agreeing to share her, for they are complaisant lovers. Michael Redgrave took the role of the husband in the Broadway production, following a run in London's West End.