Under the Yum Yum Tree

Howard Taubman writes:"Hogan is the landlord who occupies the apartment next door. He rents the cozy diggings in which the story takes place to women who generally require some sort of solacing. He is a man on the prowl, and is the first to acknowledge his defects. He lies, eavesdrops and is pushy; he tells you so himself. As the play begins Irene Wilson, a divorcee and the latest recipient of Hogan's tender consolations, is vacating the flat on Telegraph Hill with the grand view of the Golden Gate Bridge. She is leaving San Francisco to spend the summer teaching in Sacramento, and she is turning over the apartment to her niece, Robin Austin, a student at Berkeley. It does not take Hogan long to make the discovery that the newcomer is gorgeous. He uses means that seem natural to him. He listens with an ear to the door of his apartment. He peeks through the keyhole. Using a handy passkey, he opens the door a trifle, and by the adroit manipulation of two mirrors he carefully cases the new tenant. It does not take Hogan long to find out that Robin has a problem. She is in love with a clean-cut, upstanding young lawyer named Dave Manning, and he is in love with her. She thinks that before marrying they ought to test their compatibility by sharing the apartment for a few weeks—platonically, that is. The business of a high-minded, red-blooded American male resisting the innocent blandishments of the nubile Robin is manipulated to arrive at maximum suggestive content. But the sport ends blamelessly. Nothing happens to Robin without benefit of clergy."