THE POWER OF LIES
‘The Children’s Hour’ may be 82 years old, but it’s still relevant today, says actor
“The Children’s Hour” may have debuted 82 years ago, but it’s as relevant today as it was in the days when Lillian Hellman wrote it.
At least that’s the contention of the cast and director who will present the tale of the power of a child’s lies and how they can destroy the lives of the adults around them.
“People’s lives get ruined by lies and rumors all the time,” said Mairi Chanel. “It’s a really important subject that we need to look at.”
Chanel plays Karen, who runs a girls’ boarding school with Martha (Jody Durham). Their school and their reputations are ruined when a manipulative student, Mary Tilford (Gillian Garcia), wants to leave the school and, to get her way, whispers something to her grandmother, Amelia Tilford (Rose Provan), an influential matriarch in the town and school, that suggests the two schoolteachers are having a lesbian affair.
The word “lesbian” is never mentioned, but the play still was considered shocking when it first was staged. It was banned in Boston, Chicago and London (and probably other places) when it first was written. The
shock value of same-gender love may have worn down in this day and age, but director Larry Glaister said he still finds the play shocking.
“This play is about the power of the lie and the assumptions people make,” he said. “To me, the shock value is in the power of a little girl and that she wields it so deliberately.”
The challenge in the play might come in making the girl at all sympathetic or understandable, and maybe she shouldn’t be.
“It’s real hard for the audience to go away liking the kid,” Glaister said.
Maybe Gillian will be the only one who does, even though she describes the character she plays as “self-absorbed” and “a pathological liar.” A 14-yearold at the New Mexico School for the Arts, Gillian said, “I’ve learned always to love the character you’re playing — even if you’re playing a murderer.”
Her character convinces two other students to support her lies, using physical intimidation and blackmail to accomplish that task. It’s the kind of bullying that is still alive and all-too-well in today’s world — especially with the advent of social media, the players noted.
But Mary’s lies are discovered in the end, even though it is too late to save the people who suffered because of her.
Even her grandmother, who convinced everyone to pull their children from the school by spreading the rumor, suffers in the end, afflicted by a guilty conscience for the damage she caused by believing and acting on a lie, Provan said.
Amelia Tilford’s weakness lies in her inability to see her granddaughter as someone who could hurt people. “That’s why she’s sure to believe her (Mary) when she tells this story,” Provan said.
Glaister said he was interested in directing this play because “I like working with young people.” Those young people get some very powerful parts in this play, he said, adding, “It’s a good exercise for actors. It’s not ambiguous in who people are or what they are doing. The objectives of the roles are pretty clear.”
He directed his first play in high school, Glaister said, and has written a number of plays, including for the Playhouse’s Benchwarmer series over the years, some of which he also directed. But this is his first full-length play to direct in his adult years.
It’s said Hellman based this play on an incident in 1810 in Edinburgh, Scotland. In that case, the two women went to court and won their case and its appeal, but the damage still was done. So is it out of date? “A lot of this play is about somebody trying to tell you how you should live, how you should be,” Durham said. “These are two career women as opposed to being in a marriage ... . You’re told who you can love.”
And while discrimination against homosexuals is less blatant these days, it still exists, Chanel said.
“I think (the play) will always be relevant,” Durham concluded.