The Children’s Hour
The Children’s Hour
By Lillian Hellman
Directed by James Cougar Canfield
Starring Candy Heller, Carly DeCunha, Caralissa Stanley
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park FL.</b>
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to bitch slap a character as much as little Mary Tilford (Stanley). She’s the manipulative prime mover in this girl’s school drama. While she doesn’t know what she wants she knows how to get it, cost be damned. The school is run by patient Karen Wright (Heller) and her tough sidekick Martha Dobie (DaCunha). Wright is the voice of reason, and while Dobie is strangely jealous she’s also the strong disciplinarian. The girls all seem pre-teen fluff, but they’ve got a copy of Annis Nin and Mary cleverly uses it’s imagery to destroy the lives of Wright and Dobie although it’s unclear what she wants beyond getting out of school and vengeance for perceived slights. She black mails schoolmate Rosily (Winona Wiley) over a possibly stolen bracelet and demands she “be her vassal and obey all her commands.” Then Mary shakes her down for her allowance and flees to her gullible grandmother Amelia (Sherry Dewitt). When Mary makes outrageous claims about Dobie and Wright Amelia blabs them to all her friends before doing anything to verify them claims beyond asking Mary “Are you sure? Are you telling the truth?” Well, if that’s not enough evidence to destroy people’s lives I’ve never watched the evening news. The one salvation open to Wright and Dobie is ex-elocution coach Lily Mortar (Karen Casteel). She has a few facts that could clear things up, but since she was fired and is now on a theatrical tour, she’s unmotivated to help to justice. There’s a theme here, and it unavailable justice if anything.
I’m not sure if every negative stereotype of women pops up in this show, but the only person close to rational is Ms. Wright and even she’s a weak vessel. Contrasting Stanley’s Machiavellian bile is Dewitt’s naïve innocence, she knows what’s been accused, but she seems the only person who doesn’t get Mary’s conniving ways and suspect the rapidly shifting story. I felt sorry for Heller’s dedicated educator, she had worked hard, done nothing wrong and was ultimately debased more than any Greek hubris would deserve. Even her boyfriend (Joseph Cardin) abandons her, and he’ medically qualified to decide that Mary did not, in fact have a heart attack, and she’s pretty good at fainting on command. There’s streak of jealousy in DaChunha’s role, while the accusations were fake, she might, just might have gone along with them.
How much truth is in a play like this? Children tend to be discounted as fabulists and unreliable narrators, and threats that adults would laugh at are very effective. That leaves them open to abuse, and that’s what Mary does to her school mates – she bullies and abuses and lacks any notion of where to stop. Ironically, she’s likely to go on to a promising career somewhere from business to law to entertainment to defrauding husbands. The strong get stronger, the weak discarded, and there’s no court in the land that can restore reputation.
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