The Children’s Hour
Lillian Hellman
Ross Valley Players, Ross, through Feb. 11, 2018

Lillian Hellman’s career as an American playwright was launched in 1934 by the big splash of her first play, The Children’s Hour, that ran for almost 700 performances and generated controversy and debate, owing to its then-shocking subject matter. It was revived in 1952 during McCarthyism, as was Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, to make artistic protest against the “witch hunt” of the hearings and resulting blacklisting. Given this context, it’s a significant entry in American theatre history, but its contemporary place is far less sure, due to dated dialogue and an unredeemed perspective on sexuality mired in its original era. Ross Valley Players mounts an uneven production that sometimes engages but fails to elevate the dated material.

To read more about this production, continue to my Talkin’ Broadway review, at:
The Children’s Hour