Accent on Youth

Accent on Youth (1934), a comedy by Samson Raphaelson. [ Plymouth Theatre, 229 perf.] Steven Gaye (Nicholas Hannen), a successful middle‐aged playwright, has written a play about a middle‐aged man in love with a young girl, but the actors are unhappy with it until Gaye's young secretary, Linda Brown (Constance Cummings), shows them its virtues. She then assumes the leading role herself, falls in love with her leading man (Theodore Newton), and marries him. Left alone, Gaye finds himself unable to write more plays. Suddenly Linda arrives, announcing she is disillusioned with her handsome but vacuous husband, and Linda and Gaye realize that despite differences in age they are in love. That thought awakens Gaye's little muse, so he begins to dictate a new play to Linda: “Act One . . . Scene One . . . A penthouse apartment in New York City . . . change that—The Bedroom of a Castle in Spain.” Critics divided on the merits of the work, Brooks Atkinson taking a middle ground and finding it too long and contrived, but “lightly good‐humored and pleasantly insane.” It remained a favorite in summer stock for many years.

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