That old storyteller Somerset Maugham expounds his literary theorizing to the full at the outset of "Quartet." It seems that during his lifetime he has woven his experiences into his stories till now, looking back, he can't separate the fact from the fiction. Perhaps it was this sort of profundity that led critics to label him "superficial" at the age of sixty. But what Maugham lacks in depth he often makes up for in speed. His talents as playwright often outshone his skill with fiction for the very reason that the man could make a clever little plot move along rapidly.

"Quartet," an English expert like the author, dramatizes four of his neat but contrived short stories which enjoy this virtue of carrying the audience along at a satisfying pace. Of course the usual Maugham vices are sometimes present.

"The Facts of Life" makes no attempts at seriousness and thereby avoids all the vices. A young Englishman's adventures in Monte Carlo against his father's advice makes for one of the lightest and pleasantest brief moments to flicker across the screen in some time; but it is better seen that talked about.

Not so, the second short opus. "Alien Corn" would like to be a bit of tragedy. A young man, frustrated in his sole ambition of becoming a concert pianist, takes his life. Here one of Mr. Maugham's vices creeps in. Lack of depth of emotion allows this piece to deteriorate to the level of a tabloid suicide at the end, though the whole thing is done with rich piano accompaniment, to be sure.

Least successful of the "Quartet," "The Kite" indulges in some contrived symbolism to point up the struggle between a mother and wife for a young man's affections. The acting of the mother is exceptionally good but once again the author descends to the maudlin to close his story and good acting is not enough to redeem the plot.

In "The Colonel's Lady" Maugham is at his best in satire of cultured English society, and superb acting combines to make this the best of the four pieces. Indeed the production and acting are on an unusually high level throughout the four stories and it is only in analysis that the picture seems to sag a bit in the middle. The general effect, as one leaves the theater, is that "the very old number," as Maugham now likes to call himself, and everyone else who has had anything to do with "Quartet" have turned out a highly entertaining group of "one-acts."