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  Tea and Sympathy

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  A PLAY BY

  ROBERT ANDERSON

  "Restores our theatre to an art again . . . A

  poignant drama about the helplessness of

  the individual in opposition to the mass . . .

  An uncommonly discerning study of character,

  stamped with the originality of a talented writer

  . . . Mr. Anderson has written a troubled idyll

  with a light touch and a wealth of understanding."

  BROOKS ATKINSON, New York Times

  "Tea and Sympathy rates with the best in our

  theatre . . . A tender, luminous and illuminating

  drama of youth."

  JOHN CHAPMAN, New York Daily News

  "A triumph . . . The last few minutes, delicate

  and difficult to act, held the audience in

  the longest breathless silence I ever recall

  seeing in a theatre."

  WILLIAM HAWKINS, New York World-Telegram & Sun

  "A moving and effective drama, with a sensitive

  feeling for character. Mr. Anderson and his play

  are valuable additions to the season."

  RICHARD WATTS, New York Post

  Jacket illustration by Clifford Strohl Associates

  Random House, New York

  Tea and Sympathy

  by Robert Anderson

  COPYRIGHTED AS AN UNPUBLISHED WORK, 1953,

  BY ROBERT WOODRUFF ANDERSON

  COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY ROBERT ANDERSON

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

  Conventions. Published in New York by Random House, Inc., and

  simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Random House of Canada,

  Limited.

  Second Printing

  CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that TEA AND

  SYMPATHY, being fully protected under the copyright laws of the United

  States, the British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all

  other countries of the Copyright Union, is subject to royalty. All rights

  including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing,

  public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of

  translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular

  emphasis is laid on the question of readings, permission for which must

  be obtained in writing from the Author's representative. All inquiries

  should be addressed to the Author's representative, Liebling-Wood,

  551 Fifth Avenue, New York 17.

  Photographs by Slim Aarons

  MANUFACTURED IN THE

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  This is for

  PHYLLIS

  whose spirit is everywhere

  in this play and in my life.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  I would like to record here my tremendous debt of gratitude to those

  persons who helped bring Tea and Sympathy so glowingly alive on stage.

  It is perhaps not a good selling point for a published volume of a play

  to say that a playwright writes a play for the theater, for the actors,

  the director, the designer. But he does. And when he is as brilliantly

  served by these artists as I have been, he feels a miracle has been

  brought to pass.

  It is not often, I think, that a playwright can say of his produced play,

  this is the way I wanted it. This is the way I dreamed it would be. I can

  say it. And I can say it because of the devotion to this play of so many

  creative and wonderful people.

  R.A.

  TEA AND SYMPATHY was first presented by the Playwrights'

  Company, in association with Mary K. Frank, at the Ethel

  Barrymore Theatre, New York City, on September 30, 1953,

  with the following cast:

  (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)

  LAURA REYNOLDS Deborah Kerr

  LILLY SEARS Florida Friebus

  TOM LEE John Kerr

  DAVID HARRIS Richard Midgley

  RALPH Alan Sues

  AL Dick York

  STEVE Arthur Steuer

  BILL REYNOLDS Leif Erickson

  PHIL Richard Franchot

  HERBERT LEE John McGovern

  PAUL Yale Wexler

  Directed by Elia Kazan

  Setting and lighting by Jo Mielziner

  Clothes designed by Anna Hill Johnstone

  SCENES

  Act One

  A dormitory in a boys' school in New England.

  Late afternoon of a day early in June.

  Act Two

  Scene I. Two days later.

  Scene II. Eight-thirty Saturday night.

  Act Three

  The next afternoon.

  ACT ONE

  The scene is a small old Colonial house which is now being used as a dormitory in a boys' school in New England.

  On the ground floor at stage right we see the housemaster's study. To stage left is a hall and stairway which leads up to the boys' rooms. At a half-level on stage left is one of the boys' rooms.

  The housemaster's study is a warm and friendly room, rather on the dark side, but when the lamps are lighted, there are cheerful pools of light. There is a fireplace in the back wall, bookcases, and upstage right double doors leading to another part of the house. Since there is no common room for the eight boys in this house, there is considerable leniency in letting the boys use the study whenever the door is left ajar.

  The boy's bedroom is small, containing a bed, a chair and a bureau. It was meant to be Spartan, but the present occupant has given it a few touches to make it a little more homelike: an Indian print on the bed, India print curtains for the dormer window. There is a phonograph on the ledge of the window. The door to the room is presumed to lead to the sitting room which the roommates share. There is a door from the sitting room which leads to the stair landing. Thus, to get to the bedroom from the stairs, a person must go through the sitting room.

  As the curtain rises, it is late afternoon of a day early in June. No lamps have been lighted yet so the study is in a sort of twilight.

  Upstairs in his room, TOM LEE is sitting on his bed playing the guitar and singing softly and casually, the plaintive song, "The Joys of Love" . . . TOM is going on eighteen.

  He is young and a little gangling, but intense. He is wearing faded khaki trousers, a white shirt open at the neck and white tennis sneakers.

  Seated in the study listening to the singing are LAURA REYNOLDS and LILLY SEARS. LAURA is a lovely, sensitive woman in her mid to late twenties. Her essence is gentleness. She is compassionate and tender. She is wearing a cashmere sweater and a wool skirt. As she listens to TOM'S singing, she is sewing on what is obviously a period costume.

  LILLY is in her late thirties, and in contrast to the simple effectiveness of LAURA'S clothes, she is dressed a little too flashily for her surroundings. . . . It would be in good taste on East 57th Street, but not in a small New England town. . . . A smart suit and hat and a fur piece. As she listens to TOM singing, she plays with the martini glass in her hand.

  TOM (Singing)

  The joys of love Are but a moment long . . . The pains of love Endure forever . . .

  (When he has finished, he strums on over the same melody very casually, and hums to it intermittently.)

  LILLY (While TOM is singing)

  Tom Lee?

  LAURA

  Yes.

  LILLY

  Doesn't he have an afternoon class?

  LAURA

&
nbsp; No. He's the only one in the house that doesn't.

  LILLY (When TOM has finished the song)

  Do you know what he's thinking of?

  LAURA (Bites off a thread and looks up)

  What do you mean?

  LILLY

  What all the boys in this school are thinking about. Not only now in the spring, but all the time . . . Sex!

  (She wags her head a little wisely, and smiles.)

  LAURA

  Lilly, you just like to shock people.

  LILLY

  Four hundred boys from the ages of thirteen to nineteen. That's the age, Laura. (Restless, getting up) Doesn't it give you the willies sometimes, having all these boys around?

  LAURA

  Of course not. I never think of it that way.

  LILLY

  Harry tells me they put saltpeter in their food to quiet them down. But the way they look at you, I can't believe it.

  LAURA

  At me?

  LILLY

  At any woman worth looking at. When I first came here ten years ago, I didn't think I could stand it. Now I love it. I love watching them look and suffer.

  LAURA

  Lilly.

  LILLY

  This is your first spring here, Laura. You wait.

  LAURA

  They're just boys.

  LILLY

  The authorities say the ages from thirteen to nineteen . . .

  LAURA

  Lilly, honestly!

  LILLY

  You sound as though you were in the grave. How old are you?

  LAURA (Smiling)

  Over twenty-one.

  LILLY

  They come here ignorant as all get out about women, and then spend the next four years exchanging misinformation. They're so cute, and so damned intense.

  (She shudders again.)

  LAURA

  Most of them seem very casual to me.

  LILLY

  That's just an air they put on. This is the age Romeo should be played. You'd believe him! So intense! These kids would die for love, or almost anything else. Harry says all their themes end in death.

  LAURA

  That's boys.

  LILLY

  Failure; death! Dishonor; death! Lose their girls; death! It's gruesome.

  LAURA

  But rather touching too, don't you think?

  LILLY

  You won't tell your husband the way I was talking?

  LAURA

  Of course not.

  LILLY

  Though I don't know why I should care. All the boys talk about me. They have me in and out of bed with every single master in the school -- and some married ones, too.

  LAURA (Kidding her)

  Maybe I'd better listen to them.

  LILLY

  Oh, never with your husband, of course.

  LAURA

  Thanks.

  LILLY

  Even before he met you, Bill never gave me a second glance. He was all the time organizing teams, planning Mountain Club outings.

  LAURA

  Bill's good at that sort of thing; he likes it.

  LILLY

  And you? (LAURA looks up at LILLY and smiles) Not a very co-operative witness, are you? I know, mind my own business. But watch out he doesn't drag his usual quota of boys to the lodge in Maine this summer.

  LAURA

  I've got my own plans for him. (She picks up some vacation folders.)

  LILLY

  Oh really? What?

  LAURA

  "Come to Canada" . . . I want to get him off on a trip alone.

  LILLY

  I don't blame you.

  LAURA (Reflecting)

  Of course I'd really like to go back to Italy. We had a good time there last summer. It was wonderful then. You should have seen Bill.

  LILLY

  Look, honey, you married Bill last year on his sabbatical leave, and abroad to boot. Teachers on sabbatical leave abroad are like men in uniform during the war. They never look so good again.

  LAURA

  Bill looks all right to me.

  LILLY

  Did Bill ever tell you about the party we gave him before his sabbatical?

  LAURA

  Yes. I have a souvenir from it. (She is wearing a rather large Woolworth's diamond ring on a gold chain around her neck . . . She now pulls it out from her sweater.)

  LILLY

  I never thought he'd use that Five-and-Dime engagement ring we gave him that night. Even though we gave him an awful ribbing, we all expected him to come back a bachelor.

  LAURA

  You make it sound as though you kidded him into marrying.

  LILLY Oh, no, honey, it wasn't that.

  LAURA (With meaning) No, it wasn't. (LAURA laughs at LILLY.)

  LILLY

  Well, I've got to go. You know, Bill could have married any number of the right kind of girls around here. But I knew it would take more than the right kind of girl to get Bill to marry. It would take something special. And you're something special.

  LAURA

  How should I take that?

  LILLY

  As a compliment. Thanks for the drink. Don't tell Harry I had one when you see him at dinner.

  LAURA

  We won't be over to the hall. I've laid in a sort of feast for tonight.

  LILLY

  Celebrating something?

  LAURA

  No, just an impulse.

  LILLY

  Well, don't tell Harry anyway.

  LAURA

  You'd better stop talking the way you've been talking, or I won't have to tell him.

  LILLY

  Now, look, honey, don't you start going puritan on me. You're the only one in this school I can shoot my mouth off to, so don't change, baby. Don't change.

  LAURA

  I won't.

  LILLY

  Some day I'm going to wheedle out o{ you all the juicy stories you must have from when you were in the theater.

  LAURA

  Lilly, you would make the most hardened chorus girl blush.