“YOUNG WOODLEY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 685, 10 June 1929, Page 14

“YOUNG WOODLEY”

MELBOURNE CRITIC’S PRAISE Tomorrow night at His Majesty's Thecitre J. C. Williamson will present to theatregoers their latest attraction. John Van Druten’s remarkable story of English college life. “Young Woodley.” The censor first banned the play in England, but, after seeing a special performance, he lifted the embargo and “Young Woodley” is still, after 12 months, going strong in London. It is a play that has caused endless discussion among the critics of the world’s leading papers. It is a play that can be looked at from different angles. The “Herald,” Melbourne, says: “ ‘Young Woodley* is a good play. It handles a piece of life in a real way, because the actors can both act and speak well, and because its essential drama is achieved in a brilliant way. It is not a sex play, although it deals with the maze of sex as it strikes the searching mind of a youth at school, but it is all handled so well and so earnestly that it appeals to the heart and the mind, to the sympathy and the understanding. ‘‘Lewis Shaw as Young Woodley is an amazingly good actor for a lad of 18, and he has more quiet force and natural theatre sense than scores of men senior to him in years and stage experience. Michael Macowan as Ainger, the prefect, is no less earnest, no less sincere, and has real ability. Frank Royde, as the housemaster, is both a very good actor and a producer. The jammy-faced fag, Trevor Brogan, was real enough to be kicked, as he often was. Natalie Moya’s job as the wife who married a bundle of prejudices instead of a man, who meekly allowed her husband’s pupils to make love to her, was finely portrayed from beginning to end. George Preston, Guy Hastings, Clare Jenkins and Edward Ashley are all splendidly cast.” The box plans are now open at Lewis Eady’s for the season of six nights.