Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
Courtyard Theatre, London, November 2001

Lillian Hellman’s 1920s play The Children’s Hour is a perfect complement to William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, with which it was paired for the 2001 winter season at the Courtyard Theatre. In Golding’s story a group of shipwrecked boys, no longer held in check by civilisation, degenerate, first becoming brutal savages, and eventually murderers. In this primitive society, weakness and "difference" are persecuted to death. In Hellman’s play, we see a similar impulse operating in a group of wealthy, privileged girls. However, their cruel victimisation takes place within civilised society, and is sanctioned even by its kindliest and most well-meaning members.

Based on true events in Scotland, The Children’s Hour caused a sensation when it was first performed in the 1920s. Mary Tilford (Theodora Jean), a spoiled, selfish, manipulative schoolgirl runs away from school, and, to avoid punishment, claims that she has done so because her teachers are lesbians. As she threatens and blackmails her schoolfriends to gain their support, events spiral out of control, ending in death and a bleakly unforgiving resolution.

Entering the intimate Courtyard Theatre on a freezing November night, the atmosphere of an old fashioned school was well established (even down to the hard benches!) The designer, David Illari, is to be complimented on the fine detail of his set, from the changes of carpet for different locations to the noticeboard in the auditorium warning of forthcoming Latin exams.

Laurie Bacon, in her first production for KDC, handled a large ensemble cast with simplicity and skill. In the crucial role of the vicious Mary, Sylvia Young graduate Theadora Jean’s convincingly childlike looks and intonation were more spoiled brat than inhuman monster, giving her scheming behaviour a chilling touch of the everyday. In this she was aided by excellent support from Claire Lusted, Kathryn McGarr, Laura Marshall and Sophie Willson as her fellow schoolgirls and victims. They too were believably young and na•ve, but far from innocent, radiating complete self-interest. Marsha Rose’s sulky actress, a grown-up child, showed how this sort of behaviour doesn’t change with age.

The martyred teachers were sympathetically played by a gentle Annabel Jones as Karen Wright, and a fire-eyed Jo Briley as her repressed but passionate colleague Martha Dobie. Tracey Pocock’s Miss Amelia Tilford was one of the strongest performances. As she tried to work out what to make of Mary’s story, her horrified bewilderment was completely convincing. Here was a genuinely "good" woman caught in a situation where to her, both alternatives were unthinkable. There was a lovely cameo from Sarah Jones as Agatha, the maid who can see right through Mary but is powerless to change the situation. Finally, Ross Tillbrook held his own with a believable combination of strength and insecure anxiety as the token man.

After the gripping inevitability of Mary’s plot unfolding, the closing stages of the play seemed a little weak and melodramatic, perhaps reflecting the tastes of the time. An offstage suicide didn’t quite strike the right note, and the final confrontation between Karen and Miss Amelia seemed rather redundant. What I wanted was a second-act return for Machiavellian Mary, but Lillian Hellman didn’t want to give me that. If the final scenes were rather under-energised, perhaps this is a fault of the writing as much as the performance.

All in all, this is an extraordinary play for its time. Hellman’s ground-breaking script surely had some influence over Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which resembles it in many ways. A fascinating revival with some wonderful women’s roles Ð a great choice for KDC.