Out Of Bounds
Two banned plays in repertoire exploring sexuality, adolescence and conformity
Two banned plays in repertoire exploring sexuality, adolescence and conformity
Young Woodley is a coming-of-age drama about an 18-year-old prefect who falls in love with his housemaster's wife, leading to life-changing consequences. Tea and Sympathy tells the story of a bullied student at a boys' prep school who finds solace and conflict in the friendship with his housemaster's wife as he navigates his complicated feelings towards masculinity and acceptance.
About The Play
About The Play
The multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre presents two plays in repertoire – Young Woodley (1928) and Tea and Sympathy (1953). 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.
Both plays tell the story of an adolescent boy at a boarding school that falls in love with his Housemaster’s wife with life-changing consequences. By juxtaposing the two plays in repertoire with the same cast of actors, this is a unique observation 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 – Young Woodley highlights the conservative British stiff upper lip, and the playwright had no choice but to explore his controversial themes through implication and subtext; Tea and Sympathy is much more explicit, and introduces a gay subplot that shocked 1950’s Broadway.
YOUNG WOODLEY by John van Druten
TEA AND SYMPATHY by Robert Anderson
Young Woodley is the story of Roger, an 18 year-old prefect at an English public school in the 1920s. Roger nearly throws away his future when he falls in love with Laura Simmons, the wife of his schoolmaster – only for her husband to plan his revenge… The play is a coming-of-age drama that explores the pain of first love and the responsibility of adulthood. First produced in the West End in 1928 in a production by Basil Dean with Frank Lawton and Jack Hawkins.
Tea and Sympathy is the story of Tom Lee, a young student at an American boys’ prep school in the 1950s. Tom is a loner, uninterested in conventional “masculine” pursuits, and cruelly bullied by his classmates and housemaster for his supposed homosexuality. The housemaster’s wife, Laura, becomes determined to help Tom, leading 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 and also a major feature film, directed by Vincente Minnelli, starring Deborah Kerr.