The play's the thing

"The play which turned a nice quiet young woman named Lillian Hellman into one of the best-known modern playwrights -- The Children's Hour -- again comes to life in all its tragic fascination Thursday night at the Coronet," wrote Harry Gilroy in the New York Times on Dec. 14, 1952.

But the play itself first saw the stage 18 years earlier. What a run! And in Montreal, The Children's Hour premiered in 1949, the very first play to be performed at a new spot called the Theatre du Rideau Vert. En français, it was "Les innocentes." (Rideau Vert was also integral to building Quebecois theatre -- these folks were the first to take a chance on the very gay Michel Tremblay, who sympathetic drag queens and street level French (joual) changed the cultural landscape. But that's another story.)

A memorial service was held this week for one of Rideau Vert's co-founders, Mercedes Palomino, who died April 18 at 93.

Nineteen-forty-nine, in Catholic-run Quebec. The choice of inaugural production was pretty darned courageous. It was "well received by a small audience." One day, I'll find the reviews in the old Montreal papers..... As Gilroy noted in the Times, "Most people interested in the theatre probably know this is a drama about a girl in a boarding school who spreads the story that two women have an abnormal attachment for one another."

How hilarious (now) it is to discover that a writer could not mention lesbianism outright in a piece about a piece about lesbianism.

But that was the way we were.

Hellman's first production was a mess. No big-name actresses would take on the lead roles, "afraid that police would close the play." It was said a big-name critic refused to even attend, ensuring that the show was shut out of that year's Pulitzer Prizes (which that year went to something called "The Old Maid"). Writes another pundit, "At the time, any mention of homosexuality on stage was illegal in New York State. The play was such a success and so widely praised by critics that the authorities overlooked its subject matter (the law would rarely be enforced until it was repealed in the '60s)."

Hellman's ouevre was inspired by the Scottish William Roughead's "Bad Companions," published in 1930. In the chapter "Closed Doors, or The Great Drumsheugh Case," wrote Gilroy, "there is the story of a scandal in Edinburgh in 1809, caused by a malicious child who said that the two headmistresses at her school had 'an inordinate affection' for each other."

Hellman can't help but tell the reporter that she's not a lesbian, but it's so slyly done that I can't be too crabby with her: "One thing that has struck me about The Children's Hour is that anyone young [she was 26] ordinarily writes autobiographically. Yet I picked on a story that I could treat with complete impersonality. I hadn't even been to boarding school -- I went to a school here in New York."

Two movies are based on The Children's Hour.

The first is titled "These Three." It was made in 1936, starring cutie Merle Oberon. Hellman adapted the play herself... and the lesbian element was excised. Snipped out like it never existed. The second woman is instead believed to be schtupping her best friend's guy. (As one reviewer noted, the original concept, although allowed on the New York stage, could not be presented as is for the masses: "it was considered far too raw for the new Production Code, which would barely allow movies to acknowledge the existence of things like divorce." And another critic notes: "According to legend, when [independent producer Sam Goldwyn ] was warned that he couldn't film the play because it was about lesbians, he replied, 'That's okay; we'll turn them into Americans.' In truth, he was convinced to purchase the screen rights when Hellman argued that the play was really about the power of a lie."

Sadly, the flick has a sappy ending.

Twenty-five years later, director William Wyler went back and filmed it all over again. And he and Hellman, again adapting her own play for the screen, were able to do it right. Sort of. It's more true to the original, but not a great movie.

Weirdly, some scenes in both movies are mirror images. It's an odd deja vue.

The 1961 film "The Children's Hour" is full of innuendo, and at least this time, it's lesbian innuendo. (The Production Code still banned the use of the word.) Both women consider the accusation sickening -- although the one who discovers her true sexuality by the end of the flick... kills herself. Liberal and homo moviegoers hated this, of course, and blamed Hollywood. It's in fact the way the play was written. Blame Hellman.