Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle

FOR A four week season – from October 31 to November 25, 2006 – Finborough Theatre is presenting two plays in repertoire: Young Woodley and Tea and Sympathy.

Both plays were originally banned by the theatre censor, The Lord Chamberlain, and both are receiving their first major London revival since the original production.

Set in the 1920s, Young Woodley is the story of Roger, an 18 year-old prefect at an English public school, who risks throwing away his future when he falls in love with Laura Simmons, the wife of his schoolmaster who, in turn, plans his revenge…

John Van Druten’s play is a coming-of-age drama that explores the pain of first love and the responsibility of adulthood. It was first produced in the West End in 1928 in a production by Basil Dean and starred Frank Lawton and Jack Hawkins.

Playwright Van Druten (1901–1957) remains best known for I Am a Camera, which was later adapted into the musical Cabaret, as well as I Remember Mama, Bell, Book and Candle, The Voice of the Turtle and a string of successful light comedies.

Set in the 1950s, Robert Anderson’s Tea and Sympathy is the story of a young student at an American boys’ prep school, Tom Lee – a loner, uninterested in conventional “masculine” pursuits, and cruelly bullied by his classmates and housemaster for his supposed homosexuality.

When the housemaster’s wife, Laura, determines to help Tom, it leads to conflict in her marriage and to a final, dramatic act intended to save Tom from despair.

First produced on Broadway and in the West End in 1957, Tea and Sympathy was also adapted for film. It starred Deborah Kerr and was directed by Vincente Minnelli.

Playwright Anderson (1917- ) received two Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award nominations – for The Nun’s Story (1959) and I Never Sang For My Father (1970). He was also nominated for the Writer’s Guild Award for his television drama, The Patricia Neal Story.

By juxtaposing the two plays in repertoire with the same cast of actors, this is a unique observation of the changing social attitudes on sexuality, education and masculinity between 1920’s Britain and 1950’s America.

It also highlights the progress in the development of theatre between the decades. In Young Woodley, Van Druten had no choice but to explore his controversial themes through implication and subtext; while Tea and Sympathy, is much more explicit and introduces a gay subplot that shocked 1950’s Broadway.

Adam Penford directs a cast that includes James Bye, Robin Chalk, Richard Crawley, Joanna Croll, Andrew Cuthbert, Christopher Fletcher, James Joyce, Andrew Macbean and Laura Main.

Tickets: £12, £9 concessions.

For more information (including the repertoire schedule) call the box office on 0870 4000 838 or visit the website.