Tea And Sympathy ***
Young Woodley **
It's strange to put on a double bill of two nearly identical plays. The only major difference between the Finborough's revivals of Young Woodley and Tea and Sympathy is quality. The latter is a softly intense treat, the former a pretty glib public school romp with tacked-on social commentary.
Both concern socially awkward boarding school boys in love with the wives of their teachers. In Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy, the amorous student is Tom, a lad who wears his hair slightly long and is considered an " offhorse". When he innocently goes swimming in the nude with a suspect master, it is all the evidence the boys and all-American housemaster Bill Reynolds need, and he is spurned and ridiculed as a homosexual.
Anderson excels in showing us individual spirits in institutionalised conformity. At the heart of the play is the housemaster's wife, Laura. A yearning for freedom, disgust at her husband, sympathy and simple coquettishness all lead to her final liaison with Tom, and Laura Main handles these complex motivations with a quiet intelligence that is the mark of this production.
It could do with more sex. The chemistry between Laura and Tom is meagre, and the revelation that Mr Reynolds is himself a repressed homosexual comes as a surprise rather than a climax. Andrew Cuthbert's Reynolds gives little sign of a man battling against his nature.
Young Woodley sees the minor cast members from the other play step to the fore, and they're saddled with much worse material. This one's set in England, and there's a lot of jolly public school chat about ragging, fagging and so forth delivered with the actors' versions of moneyed elan. Woodley and the wife he's wooing, another Laura, are both awful saps, bonding over poetry like too many delicate spirits, and the condemnations of antiquated forms of education and schoolboy thoughts on love don't hold much interest.
Until 25 November (0870 4000 838).
Out Of Bounds: Tea And Sympathy
Finborough Theatre
Finborough Road, SW10 9ED
