Two women: Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, have established through sheer determination, a private boarding school for girls. Converted from a barn, the school is nonetheless tasteful, cozy and competently designed. Among the teenage girls we find the swoony, emotional, credulous behavior you might expect. And then there’s Mary. Mary is devious, angry, bullying, given to escalating fits of rage or weeping. She pleads her innocence (everyone is against her) and when cornered, resorts to vague explanations. Like all bullies, she claims persecution. She lies obsessively, stupidly and flagrantly. She skates, mostly because it’s difficult for adults to believe, even a delinquent teenager could actually be amoral. And, in a word, pathological.
Mary decides that Karen and Martha have it in for her. She gathers information from other girls she may find useful. They have overheard Martha’s bout with her Aunt Lily. Lily accuses Martha as being unnatural. She accuses her of jealousy (as if straight people never feel jealousy for friends). Mary makes a run for it, extorting fare from a classmate, seeking refuge with her wealthy grandmother (Amelia) who is related to Karen’s fiance. She begs grandmother to let her move back home, and though she comforts, she sees right through Mary.
This isn’t Grandmother’s first rodeo, and probably not Mary’s. Even Agatha, Amelia’s housekeeper, has her number. Desperate to succeed, Mary uses a spec of gossip to extemporaneously accuse Karen and Martha of kissing, where students could see. The grandmother starts making phone calls and within two hours, the lives of Martha and Karen are ruined. All because a girl hated school.
I think we must consider several structural issues that feel curious. It seems that any extenuating circumstances that playwright Lillian Hellman might have included, she chose to omit. We are shown repeatedly that you couldn’t believe Mary if she said water is wet. Time and again this is obvious to everyone around her, peer and grownup. She is fooling no one. When Evelyn becomes Mary’s unwilling shill, her testimony is so obviously coached, you cannot understand why they succumb to such shaky circumstances. In every conceivable way we are shown that Mary is motivated by vindictiveness. And yet she prevails.
Sadly, I think we are all familiar with the adage: We must protect the children. Which is certainly true. But protect them from what? Whether we’re discussing queer teachers, trans people in public facilities, or high school boys taking Home Ec, the kids are headed for deep trouble. Now some issues are so grotesque, so horribly misunderstood, so unthinkable, that there could be no margin for error. If two women are so depraved, why, who knows what they’ll do?
Panic has spread, parents are having a meltdown; if they must err on the side of caution, so be it. Even before Amelia Tilford has heard from Karen and Martha, she’s on the phone, based on this flimsy logic. If anything, I believe Hellman has granted these two, caring friends, the exceptionally fair “trial’ we actually witness before us. She wants us to see that even after those involved have every reason to exonerate, they crumble (except the fiance) in the face of chaos.
Some issues are supposedly so catastrophic, that reason left the station yesterday. In defense of Hellman’s wisdom, I think this strategy keeps The Children’s Hour from being didactic. A parable. Though it may not seem so at first. I think the absolute and complete ruin that befalls the two (beyond remedy it would seem) only makes it more clear, just how ruthless, vicious and unconscionable is the crime of Mary.
MainStage’s production of The Children’s Hour was nearly impeccable. Consider Lillian Hellman’s script. How demanding and difficult. The content (of course) was wrenching. Infuriating. Deeply, deeply sad. Intensely focused and poignant performances by the entire cast. (A couple of scenes felt a bit rushed). Dave Tenney’s set design was detailed, and sparse enough to set the mood. Michael Robinson’s 1930’s costume design felt sophisticated and apt, without being ostentatious.
Kudos to MainStage Irving-Las Colinas for staging The Children’s Hour, so timely and rarely performed. What a remarkable production.
MainStage Irving-Las Colinas presented The Children’s Hour It played September 20th-October 5th 2024. 3333 North MacArthur Blvd. Irving, Texas 75062. 972-252-2787. www.MainStageIrving.com