Cast

Synopsis

Massachusetts, 1934. A number of adolescent girls’ gossip, sew and pretend to do their homework – overseen by Mrs. Lily Mortar – a failed actress. All are pupils at the school founded by Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. At first everything seems fine and prospering. The two founders are proud of their creation and seem all set for a happy and successful future. Karen in particular is looking forward to her wedding to Joe Cardin, the local doctor.

The only ‘fly in the ointment’ seems to be Martha’s eccentric thespian aunt, who is ‘helping’ the two young women with the pupils. Vain and selfish, it is Lily Mortar’s casual remark which starts the lie. This lie is overheard by Mary, a child who has been relentlessly spoilt by her wealthy grandmother. Mary willfully misinterprets the situation and so the lie begins to take hold – and the poison is spreading everywhere…..

Directors Notes

The Children’s Hour is the first play written by Lillian Hellman and first performed in 1934. During the next few years she wrote many other plays including her most famous Little Foxes with some being adapted for the big screen. What first attracted me to this play was the fresh and believable dialogue and central theme of the play, which is the lie which causes such harm and pain.

When young, in 1920’s America, and unusually for a young woman, Hellman travelled extensively in Europe and benefited from a university education. Before writing her plays she had a career reading novels and periodicals for possible screen-plays in Hollywood. Although married, she met the dashing mystery writer,Dashiel Hammett. She divorced her husband and spent the next 30 years romantically involved with Hammett. Although women in the States had just got the vote, social customs changed very slowly and this was an unusual and daring life for a woman then.

The screen rights to The Children’s Hour was bought up by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (whom Hellman had returned to work for as a screen writer) whilst it was still running on Broadway. But it had to be adapted for the big screen with any mention of lesbianism expunged! Hellman continued to write and court controversy as a political figure. She opposed Franco in Spain, and joined the Communist Party in 1938. Her activities led her to be scrutinised by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the late 1940s at the height of ‘McCarthyism’. This was when many writers and artists were rooted out and persecuted by the American authorities.

Researching the writer further, you find an enigmatic woman, who divided her contemporaries when she wrote accounts of her earlier life in politics to the extent that a defamation lawsuit (brought by Hellman) was outstanding at the time of her death in 1984. Lillian Hellman was a fascinating writer – a pioneer whose plays dealt with dark and difficult issues – but with a lightness of touch and an empathy to all her characters.