The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-27

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Maxine Elliott Theatre.
Reviewed by
LEON ALEXANDER
IT is a good thing for a reviewer to
1 come across a play like THE
Childrens Hour" to counterbalance
the puerilities Of such connections
as THE Farmer Takes a Wife" or
Ladies Money'-to mention only
two Of the current Broadway
shows. It serves to remind him
that playwriting may be a mature
art, playgoing an adult entertain
ment, and reviewing an occupation
of some meaning.
The play is laid in a private
school for girls, run by Martha
Dobie and Karen Wright, who have
spent eight years of struggle and
self-denial building the school. The
younger of them, Karen, is en-
gagged to marry Doctor Cardin, the
uncle Of one of the pupils and the
nephew of the rich Mrs. Tilford,
who had been of considerable help
to the two teachers in their early
difficulties.
The child, Mary Tilford, is neu-
rotic, spiteful, unbalanced, domi-
neering, selfwilled, scheming. Pam
pered at home by her grandmother
she cannot fit into the discipline of
a school, and she imagines that she
is the special object of the teach
ers' persecution.
Intent upon reYenging herself for
a mild and well-deserved punish
rnent, she runs away to her grand
mother. To avoid being sent back
to school, she accuses the two
teachers of having homosexual re-
lations. Grandmother Tilford is
Mortified, and even before she has
probed into the accusations of her
grandchild, she telephones to all
the mothers to get their children
out of the school. The two teach
ers, faced with economic ruin, sue
her for libel and lose.
THE third act finds the two teach
1 ers alone in the now abandoned
school, week after the trial, help
less before the stigma of homo
Sexuality, prosecuted by the towns
folk, their life's work shattered,
their future without hope. Doubts
have crept even into the doctors
mind, and in tacit understanding
the marriage is broken off.
And only now, face to face with
the problem, Martha Dobie realizes
that there is truth in the accusa-
ton of homosexuality; that she
has been in love with Karen since
their college days. This realization
drives Martha to suicide.
There the final curtain might
have fallen, but the author adds an
other drop of acid to her brew of
bitterness. She brings back Mrs.
Tilford, contrite, heartbroken, who
has learned that Mary had lied.
While the dead woman is in the
next room, there is long, unnec-
essary and painful scene between
the two women; unnecessary be-
cause the bitter, ironic point Of the
play had already been too COM
pletely brought out.
THE excellencies Of this play do
1 not lie in its situations. Not
that they are theatre-worn and
emotionally threadbare; but the
play is unnecessarily overcompli-
Gated and sensational The homo
sexual theme is almost dragged in
by the ears; almost any other
scandal would have served the
same purposes of the play. There
is also lack of a clear dramatic
line; the emotional tension veers
from one theme to the other, and
the point of view of the audience
must be changed at least three
times-the story being by turns
that of the neurotic child Mary
Tilford, of the conflict between the
wrongly accused school teachers
and the grandmother of Mary, and
finally of the homosexual passion
of one of the teachers for the other.
AS result, though gripping in
individual scenes, the play appears
rather pointless in spite Of its Bit
terneSS.
The virtues Of the play are in
the authors uncompromising atti-
tude toward her characters. She
has drawn them with unsparing
keenness and savage honesty. There
is some slight show of sympathy
in the play, but rarely any tender
ness.
Miss Hellman has been inpelled
by no social motive; if she had
been, she would have done more
significant job of Mary Tilford, the
neurotic child. Nevertheless, be-
cause of the authors honesty of
observation, certain social facts,
certain class characteristics become
clearly evident in the play. In the
scene between the two teachers and
Mrs. Tilford there is a world of
class implications. The two teach
erS are fighting desperately for their
very existence; the rich Mrs. Til
ford remains rnmoved in her self
righteousness, her upper-class sense
of justice, her lack of sympathy for
those she considers her menials,
coldly condemning them without
recourse, acting both as judge and
executioner.
Then there is the child Mary
Tilford. In the very intensity of her