Hellman's subject matter is timeless and so simple.
Lies destroy, money corrupts, and that's pretty much all there is to it.
Sure, her plays are all horribly melodramatic, but all that melodrama can just add to the fun, so long as the players don't fight it. In Forest, Hellman has crafted a family of grotesque characters so good at being bad that the audience is seduced into dropping its moral guard and encouraged to revel in all that glorious badness. Another Part of the Forest is a Southern tale of mythological proportions. Set during the Reconstruction, Hellman shows a new world rising from the ashes of the Civil War, and her characters are clearly recognizable Southern types. The brothers Hubbard are the Isaac and Ishmael of the New South.