As the curtain rises on
Tea and Sympathy, the audience sees a two-room set suggesting security and serenity, the warm and comfortable housemaster’s study on stage right, a student’s bedroom, a few steps higher, on stage left. As the action begins, young, sensitive Tom Lee is sitting on his bed singing the song "The Joys of Love," while in the study, Laura Reynolds, a casually attired, lovely
woman in her mid-twenties, and her friend, Lilly Sears, a flashily dressed woman in her late thirties, are talking idly while Laura sews on what is obviously a period costume. Lilly is unsuccessfully trying to persuade Laura that the
boys in this preparatory
school are all obsessed with sex; Laura is more inclined to believe that they need understanding and kindness. After Lilly leaves, Tom enters, and it is immediately obvious to the audience, though not to Laura, that he is in love with her. When he asks to take her to an upcoming dance, which her husband the housemaster will not be able to attend, Laura accepts, assuming that Tom simply knows no girls. In this
scene, too, the audience learns that the costume that Laura is making is for Tom, who will
play the starring role of Lady Teazle in R.B. Sheridan’s
The School for Scandal (pr. 1777). Tom confides to Laura that his father, an alumnus of the school, will probably be angered when he learns that Tom is once again playing a woman’s role; Tom also hints at some problems with other boys, who have nicknamed him "Grace" simply for his crush on actress Grace Moore. When he cares about someone, Tom admits, he tends to go overboard.
As the
act proceeds, the theme of homosexuality is introduced. The young master, David Harris, comes to tell Tom that they were seen bathing together nude and that this indiscretion has cost him his job. In contrast to this episode, which on Tom’s part at least was completely innocent, Robert Anderson inserts a brief scene in which Tom’s critics display their masculinity by clustering at a window to watch a master’s wife nurse her baby. When the housemaster Bill Reynolds enters, anxious to tell Laura the gossip about Tom, it is noticeable that, while he is quick to question Tom’s sexuality, he sees nothing peculiar about his own frequent outings with young male students, which are clearly more important to him than vacations with his wife. As the act
ends, Tom’s father, Herbert Lee, who has heard about the scandal involving his son and Harris, plans a strategy to convince the other boys that Tom is virile and, as a first step, forces Tom to give up his part in the play. Even Laura, Tom’s friend and defender, tries to arrange a date for him, and as the curtain falls, the humiliated, guiltless Tom is sobbing alone in his room.
The second act is set two days later. In the first scene, Tom’s roommate, Al, is pressured by his father and by his peers to desert Tom. Yet, he still hopes to save Tom’s reputation, and with the best intentions he demonstrates how Tom should change his walk, in order to avoid suspicion of homosexuality, and then persuades Tom to have as a date for the dance the most promiscuous girl in town. Meanwhile, the marital problems of Laura and Bill are intensifying, but when Laura tries to talk to him about their unsatisfactory sexual relationship, Bill changes the subject to Tom, revealing his obsessive hatred of the boy.
The second scene in this act takes place on the night of the dance. It is revealed that Laura, who had overheard Tom’s telephone conversation with the notorious Ellie Martin, had gone to look her over. In a tender conversation, Laura tells Tom about her first husband, who became a dead hero in order to prove that he was not a coward. Overwhelmed by his feelings, Tom kisses her; instinctively, she says, "No," and Tom leaves, just as Bill and his mountain-climbing contingent return, defeated by the weather. As the act ends, Bill is reaching toward Laura.
The third act, which takes place the following afternoon, begins with a confrontation between Bill and Tom. Tom is to be expelled from school for being picked up by the police, but the reason has obviously delighted Bill: Unable to perform with Ellie Martin, Tom threatened to kill himself and Ellie called the police. When Herbert Lee arrives, Bill must repeat the story to him, and Herbert’s pleasure in having a wild son turns to disgust with his sexual inadequacy. Furious, Laura insists on a talk with her husband, and, after indicting the masters and the boys who brought Tom to the brink of suicide, she expresses her regret that she had not encouraged Tom to prove himself with her. Real manhood means the courage to be tender and sensitive, she says, claiming that Tom is far more of a man than Bill, whose homophobia may well be disguising his own tendencies. Bill walks out. The marriage is over. As the scene ends, Laura walks into Tom’s bedroom, locks the door, and moves into his arms.
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