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"The capacity of the average audience to completely misunderstand and misinterpret, to imply humor where none is intended, to mistake frankness for vulgarity,--this is most discouraging to the actor."
Seated in the last row of the darkened theatre back of the rows of empty seats and facing the lighted stage on which the afternoon rehearsal had just been held, Glenn Hunter, star of "Young Woodley", which opened last. Monday night at the Hollis Theatre in Boston, spoke rapidly and enthusiastically of college, of his own work and plans, but most of all of the new play,--the successor of "Merton".
"You know", he continued, "I think that it is a terrific thing, this 'growing up'. That questioning period with its first serious disturbing thoughts, catching youth at the most impressionable time of life and at a time when so many boys come under the confining, unsympathetic supervision of the English 'public schools' or our own more or less corresponding private institutions."
Looks Like Undergraduate
Mr. Hunter, whose engaging, undergraduate manner and appearance belie his high attainments as an artist, stopped long enough to answer a question as to his opinion of how the play-goers of this country will accept a theme as thoroughly English as that of the "public school".
"Of course 'Young Woodley' belongs to New York where innovation along any line is accepted with a more sympathetic feeling. There is undoubtedly a dissimilarity of tone in the English school which will be incomprehensible to many, but 'Boy', at least, remains universal.
"It is this universality of youthful spirit found throughout the world but most particularly characteristic of the 'prep' school and college, that I would like to continue to represent. A following among those, who, like myself, are still young enough to understand and sympathize with this spirit, is the approval I would value most highly."
Turning for a moment from "Young Woodley", Mr. Hunter commented briefly on his own ideas of the American college.
"Naturally I regret the fact that the call of the stage proved in some ways stronger than the urge for college. However, I am able in some measure to offset the loss of the associations and friendships gained through college, against the four valuable years of practical stage experience. Which is something in itself", he concluded.
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