The Children’s Hour | Timeline Theatre Company
WHERE TimeLine Theatre Company, Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, 615 W. Wellington
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Maybe Hellman did consider lesbianism just a plot device. But “unnatural” love and society’s disapproval of it are fundamental to the play, just as anti-Semitism is central to The Merchant of Venice. Audiences still argue over whether Shakespeare was criticizing or endorsing the prejudice Shylock endures, and the homosexual element in The Children’s Hour stirs similar debate.
Despite its original New York success, The Children’s Hour was banned in 1935 in several cities, including Chicago, and William Wyler’s 1936 film version, scripted by Hellman, bowed to censorship by turning the scandal into heterosexual infidelity. Wyler restored the original sin in his 1961 remake, and titillating ad copy read “What made these women different? Did Nature play an ugly trick and endow them with emotions contrary to those of normal young women?”
Running in repertory with The Children’s Hour is Lillian, William Luce’s one-woman portrait of Hellman. Directed by Louis Contey, it’s a tour de force in Janet Ulrich Brooks’s charismatic, perfectly modulated performance.
