The Children's Hour (play)

For the article about the 1961 film adaptation, see The Children's Hour (film).

The Children's Hour
File:Playbill Cover for The Children's Hour at Coronet Theatre.jpg Playbill cover for The Children's Hour at Coronet Theatre
Written by	Lillian Hellman
Characters	Evelyn Munn Mrs Lily Mortar Peggy Rogers Helen Burton Lois Fisher Catherine Rosalie Wells Mary Tilford Karen Wright Martha Dobie Doctor Joseph Cardin Agatha Mrs Amelia Tilford A Grocery Boy
Date premiered	20 November 1934
Place premiered	Maxine Elliott's Theatre, New York, USA
Original language	English
Subject	Rumours, lies, gossip, reputation, friendship, women, lesbianism, homophobia
Genre	Drama/tragedy

The Children's Hour is a 1934 stage play written by Lillian Hellman. It is a drama set in an all-girls boarding school run by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. An angry student, Mary Tilford, runs away from the school and to avoid being sent back she tells her grandmother that the two headmistresses are having a lesbian affair. The accusation proceeds to destroy the women's careers, relationships and lives.

The play was first staged on Broadway at Maxine Elliott's Theatre in 1934, where it ran for over two years, and in 1936 it was put on at London's Gate Theatre Studio and Dublin's Gate Theatre.

Synopsis

Two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, have worked hard to build a girls' boarding school in a refurbished farmhouse. They run and teach the school with the somewhat unwelcome help of Lily Mortar, Martha's aunt. One pupil, Mary Tilford, is mischievous, disobedient, and untruthful, and often leads the other girls into trouble. One day, when Mary feigns illness and is being examined by Dr. Joe Cardin, a physician who is Mary's cousin and also Karen's fiancé, Martha asks Lily whether she would like to go back to traveling to the places she misses, now that they can afford it. Lily becomes angry and starts shouting about how, whenever Joe is around, Martha becomes irritable, unreasonable and jealous, taking her jealousy of Joe out on her. Two of Mary's friends, listening at the door trying to discover Mary's condition, overhear Lily's outburst.

Mary is found healthy and is sent to her room and squeezes the information out of the girls. Mary plans to ask her grandmother, Amelia Tilford—who not only indulges her but who also helped Karen and Martha a great deal in setting up the school—to allow her not to return. When Amelia refuses, Mary cleverly twists what the girls had overheard. With the help of several well-crafted lies and a book that the girls have been reading in secret, Mary convinces her grandmother that Karen and Martha are having a lesbian affair. On hearing this, Amelia Tilford begins contacting the parents of Mary's classmates. Shortly, most of Mary's friends have been pulled out of school. Rosalie Wells, a student whose mother is abroad, stays with Mary.

On discovering that Rosalie is vulnerable, Mary blackmails her into corroborating everything she says. When Karen and Martha realize why all their pupils were pulled out of their school in a single night, they go to Mrs. Tilford's residence to confront her. Amelia tells Mary to repeat her story. When Karen points out an inconsistency, Mary pretends to have been covering for Rosalie, who reluctantly corroborates Mary's story for fear of being exposed herself. Resolving to take Amelia to court, Martha and Karen leave.

Seven months later, after Martha and Karen have lost the case, everyone still believes that they were lovers. When Lily returns from abroad to take care of her niece, the women are angry with her for not having stayed in the country in order to testify to their innocence. Meanwhile Joe, who has remained loyal throughout, has found a job in a distant location. He tries to convince Karen and Martha to come with him and start over. As Martha goes to prepare dinner, Joe continues his attempts to persuade Karen, who now believes that she has ruined his life and destroyed everything that she and Martha had worked so hard to achieve.

At Karen's insistence, Joe reluctantly asks her whether she and Martha had ever been lovers. When Karen says that they were not, he readily believes her. Nevertheless, Karen decides that she and Joe must part. She explains that things can never be the same between them after all that they have been through. She asks Joe to leave and he refuses. He agrees to leave if Karen will think things through before finalizing the break-up. When Martha returns and finds out from Karen what has happened, she is consumed with guilt. Her discovery that she might indeed have feelings for Karen overwhelms and terrifies her. Before Martha tells Karen how she feels, Karen tells Martha that she would like to relocate in the morning and wants her to come with her. Martha says it's impossible for them to live comfortably again and eventually admits her feelings for Karen. Karen responds dismissively, saying that they never felt this way for each other. Martha continues, but Karen tells Martha that she is tired and they can talk about it in the morning. As Karen sits in her room, she hears a shot. Martha has killed herself. Shortly after, Amelia Tilford arrives to beg Karen's forgiveness, since Mary's lies have now been uncovered. Karen explains to her that it is too late: Mary's lies, together with the community's willingness to believe and spread malicious gossip, have destroyed three innocent lives.

Source information

Scotch Verdict: Miss Pirie and Miss Woods v. Dame Cumming Gordon (1983), by Lillian Faderman (author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers), recounts the historical incident on which Hellman based her play. In 1810 in Edinburgh, Scotland, a pupil named Jane Cumming accused her schoolmistresses, Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods, of having an affair in the presence of their pupils. Dame Cumming Gordon, the accuser's influential grandmother, advised her friends to remove their daughters from the boarding school. Within days the school was deserted and the two women had lost their livelihood. Pirie and Woods sued and eventually won, both in court and on appeal, but given the damage done to their lives, their victory was considered hollow.

Productions

This was Hellman's first hit play. At the time, any mention of homosexuality on stage was illegal in New York State, but the play was such a success and so widely praised by critics that the rule was not enforced.

After the play was banned in Boston, Chicago, and London, it opened in Paris, retitled Les Innocents (The Innocents) to popular review.

In 1936, the play was made into a film directed by William Wyler. However, because of the Production Code, the story was adapted into a heterosexual love triangle, the controversial name of the play was changed, and the movie was eventually released as These Three. Hellman reportedly worked on the screenplay, keeping virtually all of the play's original dialogue, and was satisfied with the result, saying the play's central theme of gossip was unaffected by the changes.

In 1952, a revival and revised stage production was also construed as an implied criticism of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In 1961, the play was adapted, with its lesbian theme intact, for the film The Children's Hour, also directed by Wyler. In the UK, New Zealand and Australia it was released under the title The Loudest Whisper and starred Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner.

In 1971 the play was produced for the radio by the BBC in its Saturday Night Theatre series – starring Clare Holman, Buffy Davis, Miriam Margoleyes, and Margaret Robertson.

The play was revived in London's West End beginning 22 January 2011 starring Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss, directed by Ian Rickson.

Casting

Character	1934 Maxine Elliott Theatre production	1935 Gate Theatre production	These Three (1936)	1950 New Boltons Theatre Club production	1952 Coronet Theatre production	1961 film
Martha Dobie	Anne Revere	Valerie Taylor	Miriam Hopkins	Jessica Spencer	Patricia Neal	Shirley MacLaine
Karen Wright	Katherine Emery	Ursula Jeans	Merle Oberon	Joan Miller	Kim Hunter	Audrey Hepburn
Dr. Joseph Cardin	Robert Keith	Leo Genn	Joel McCrea	David Markbam	Robert Pastene	James Garner
Amelia Tilford	Katherine Emmet	Mary Merrall	Alma Kruger	Mary Merrall	Katherine Emmet	Fay Bainter
Mary Tilford	Florence McGee	Mavis Edwards	Bonita Granville	Dorothy Gordon	Iris Mann	Karen Balkin
Lily Mortar	Aline McDermott	Vera Hurst	Catherine Doucet	Natalie Lynn	Mary Finney	Miriam Hopkins
Rosalie Wells	Barbara Beals	Pamela Standisl	Marcia Mae Jones	Penelope Bartley	Janet Parker	Veronica Cartwright
Agatha	Edmonia Nolley	Enid Lindsey	Margaret Hamilton	Juno Stevas	Leora Thatcher	Hope Summers
Evelyn Munn	Elizabeth Seckel	Hilary Windsor	Carmencita Johnson	Eileen Stevens	Denise Alexander	Mimi Gibson
Helen Burton	Lynne Fisher	Joan Newell		Alicia Holt	Toni Hallaran	William Mims
The mother of Rosalie Wells						Sally Brophy
Peggy Rogers	Eugenia Rawls	Audrey Orme		Mary Loraine	Sandra March
Lois Fisher	Jacqueline Rusling	Annabel Maule		Shelia Shand-Gibbs	Carolyn King
Catherine	Barbara Leeds	Jenny Lovelace		Deirdre Teebay	Nancy Plehn
Grocery boy	Jack Tyler	Michael Morice		Patrick Vyvian	Gordon Russell	Jered Barclay

External links

• The Children's Hour, starring Keira Knightley at The Comedy Theatre, London. Official Website.
• The Children's Hour at the Internet Broadway Database
• These Three (1936 film) at IMDb
• The Children's Hour (1961 film) at IMDb
• The Children's Hour and These Three celebrated at Hellman Wyler Festival in Alabama
• Understanding Modernism & Postmodernism
• Full Text of The Children's Hour by Hellman – from Plays Of The Year: Volume 5 (1952)