The Gioconda Smile

by Aldous Huxley

performed by BTG February 1956

A Play

Emily Hutton has been a complaining chronic invalid and her husband, Henry, a rich and still comparatively young man, has found consolation elsewhere. For years, he has shared his intellectual and artistic interests with Janet Spence, valuing her Gioconda-like inscrutability, but Janet's surface calm hides an intense passion for Henry and she poisons Emily. When, after several months' separation, she finds Henry has married someone else she determines to wreak havoc on their lives