The Children's Hour

Reading Lillian Hellman's  Collected Plays, finally, and the first play was The Children's Hour. This I knew of from the movie version. 

What struck was some similarity to Mae West's plays that I wrote about here. They share use of a three act structure and lies about sexuality. Unlike West where the melodrama ends in murder, Hellman has a suicide.

But reading this play made me think of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Both have a spiteful teenaged female sparking the action. Hellman got there first and maybe done a better job. It's been an age since  I read Miller'd play but my feeling is it might be too identified with McCarthyism to escape stodginess.

I felt a bit of satisfaction finding another connecting Hellman and Miller. Steve Cohen did it back in 2015 in his review Children’s Hour, an adult play. 

The review also indicates Hellman is not completely forgotten. Some other productions turned up by Google:

• THE CHILDREN’S HOUR TEACHES LIFE LESSONS (2013)
  
• “The Children’s Hour” has two Seattle productions this year. It’s still a fascinating study of deceit, homophobia and its author’s demons. (2015)
• Diverse cast brings 'The Children’s Hour' into modern era (2018)
  
• 2019 Fall Theatre Production: The Children's Hour
  
• London Nelson Community Theater 2022
  
• Ball State University 2020
  

A BBC radio adaptation from 2020:

A lecture on the play from an Indian lecturer by way of YouTube:

And to close out with the links, a dissertation abstract arguing bully is an overlooked theme of the play.

All right, a play that retains relevance for the stage and is a good read for the reader. Give the lady a chance to be read and to be staged.

sch 4/15/22