Play and players combined to present a pleasant performance of John Van Druton's "Young Woodley," at the Copley Theatre last night. Seven or eight years ago Glenn Hunter, who stars in the local production, created the role of the shy, appealing youngster who fails in love with his housemaster's wife; the play has lasted well.

The Copley production has its faults. Interest on the part of the audience lags through most of Act 1; the younger the people of the play, the greater is the tendency on the part of the actors toward an amateurish flavor. Only during the second act do we believe that Laura Simmons is the person the author intended her to be, and throughout the play there is a feeling that only Shepherd Strudwick, as Ainger, of the supporting cast, is genuine.

Glenn Hunter plays the English schoolboy with a certain shy dignity which magnifies the part beyond the author's limits, and rightly so. We know of no scene so rich in possibilities as that in which, teacup and plate on Knee, the lad confesses (in a deplorable sonnet), his love. The laurels of the evening, clearly, are his.

"Young Woodley" is not a great play, but even so it was infinitely beyond the understanding of the majority of last night's audience. Titerers should be hanged.