The Children’s Hour

Written by Lillian Hellman

Directed by Elizabeth Carlin-Metz

Repertory Term XVIII

Written in the 1930s, a devastating and false accusation of what was then termed “sexual deviance” sets in motion a seething interrogation of social perceptions and norms that determine the fates of two women running a boarding school. Though a landmark in its day, the play is a problem play by today’s standards, as similar to post-Victorian views of mental illness, congenital cognitive anomalies, and cancer, all of which were viewed as contagious and feared as retribution for sin, lesbianism was deemed an especially shocking and revolting mental disorder in a culture in which women were meant to be virgins or wives.