[The plot of "The Corn Is Green" is] concerned with the relations between a determined spinster who sets up her own school in a remote Welsh mining village and the young genius whom she discovers there….

Certainly the piece is not especially novel or especially searching. In fact, it passes rapidly over the incident concerning the momentary rebellion of the youth against the intellectual forcing process to which he is subjected, and it elaborates at great length the incident involving the child born to the village seductress, despite the fact that the latter is familiar theatrical stuff while the former affords the best opportunity … for an original psychological study. But if the play is neither novel nor searching it is human and sincere, and the fact that it is continuously interesting is probably due less to any single outstanding excellence than to the cumulative effect of various simple...