The children's hour

Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney, 14 February - 2 March 2025

The review

Directed by Kim Hardwick @hardwick3970

Produced by Tiny Dog Productions @tinydogproductions & Dead Fly Productions @deborahjones7550

The play, written by Lillian Hellman in 1934, is based on a story from 1810. Then the careers and lives of two high school teachers in Edinburgh were ruined after their pupils falsely accused them of being lovers. Nearly a 100-year-old play, acclaimed to be exemplary, is presented now in a simplistic set-up on a background of two adjustable Chinese-style fabric screens painted in a wallpaper fashion. There is only a bureau, a table, chairs, a large disk phone, and some small things, re-assembled to make any space - a classroom, a posh living room, or a displeasing house with soft lighting backing up the coziness or emptiness, accompanied by piano tunes and, by the end, sound of ceaseless rain.The story starts in a classroom in a private girls' boarding college. Each of them is busy with their own little thing, supposed to do some craft, while one is forced to read out loud “Antony and Cleopatra”. Horrible plain reading is encouraged by Ms Lily Mortar (Deborah Jones @deborahjones7550), an aunt of one of the two founders of the school, Martha.Unsuccessful actress herself, Ms Lily is a distasteful aging woman, easy to be flattered, easy to start a drama, eager to overdo any simple act of life. This character is spineless but by circumstances placed at pivotal times. Ms Lily is noisy and tasteless. She is self-absorbed when Martha tries to cry out to reach her mind. She is easily insulted and even easier insults in return. She is too shallow, but at times even that feels like a play. It is a despair when faith relies on this kind - while Ms Lily could save her niece, she did not.There is a conflict in the school. There is a girl Mary, too wild, too spoiled,  who does everything to get expelled. The issue is that her grandmother, Mrs Amelia Tilford (Annie Byron @vovoannie9) is a supporter of the college and is an aunt of Karen’s fiancé Joe (Mike Booth @pneumavista).Karen (Romney Hamilton romneyhamilton) is a co-principal

is a co-principal and co-founder of the school, together with Martha (Jess Bell @_____jessbell).

Mrs Amelia, with intonations of an old lady, the manners and tone of a rich and influential - in her circle - woman. She is a mix of opposites, like a bag of pieces of glass - all together, nothing mixed in. Spoiling her grandchild, she senses well who Mary really is. In the final scene, apologizing for a horrific mistake, she looks repenting but yet for a moment lets patronizing intonation slip away (‘you will dear, you will’). Feeling contrite and feeling sorry for herself at the same time, she justifies her own actions. Brilliantly made character.

With such a close loop of relatives, it sounds like a potential wasp nest, but it is not so. Both Karen and Martha are hard to push over the line. They are professional, they are strong friends and companions. Except once. That once, the argument between Aunt Lily and Martha, heated up to hatred, reaches the ears of several girls, and is transformed by curiosity, ignorance, and innocence to something wrong. The story gets to Mary (Kim Clifton @kim.clifton). She’s spoiled rotten by her grandmother. She is a bully; she knows how to wake fear, how to gain control by flattering, trading secrets, intertwining truth and false, physical harassment at the end. She knows a taste of a cheap satisfaction in superiority. Maybe she was a lonely, unhappy child in the deep past, but she seems to pass a point of no return. She found joy in her mastered devilish manipulations.

The only counterforce to her is Mrs Amelia’s maid (Martelle Hammer @missmartellehammer), who is winning the silent war but losing the vocal one - she is not an equal on the social ladder.

The girls Mary is confronting played well. To mention two here, a gentle, lama-eyes Rosalie (Sarah Ballantyne @sarahballantynee), whose weakness completed fatal downturn for Karen and Martha, and another girl played by Lara Kocsis @lara.kocsis. This one tried to say a firm no but gave up after Mary beat her up. Here, the versatility of Lara Kocsis is impressive. From a lady from “Sophis =(Wisdom): The Cliffs” to a soft-featured teenager, a victim of the power of bullying.

In the second act, the center of mass of this play shifts, without losing integrity.

With a focus on Martha and Karen, their slow, cautious steps through a chain of gloomy days. Their reflection of what happened and why. Their relationship with Joe - the only man in the play. A decent, strong, protective man.

Martha’s life, her feelings and choices, realizations, and false guilt induced by a vulgar public opinion are made slick by Jess Bell. I’ve seen several works of this actress, and every time I am mesmerized by the path she creates for her characters. Initially, nearly a bleak, ordinary woman opens up into a complex, tragic, non-conventional personality, with an immense power to feel.

In this play, the chain of events rolling up just at a distance of a few meters makes the existence of a fourth wall unbearable.

The torture of the theatre is right here. While I want to break through to shut the little horrific creature down, to save the women from disgrace, the rules of the game forbid it, leaving one to curse. It glimpses with a thin ray of hope, but smashes at the end with a wave of undeserved pain.

An exorbitant cost for a false acquisition in being in love - a controversial and shameful estate of the snobbish society.

Creative team

Producing Company: Tiny Dog Productions & Dead Fly Productions

Playwright: Lillian Hellman

Director: Kim Hardwick

Producers: Deborah Jones & Romney Hamilton

Assistant Director: Maddy Steadman

Set Designer: Emelia Simcox

Costume Designer: Hannah Yardley

Lighting Designer: Jimi Rawlings

Stage Manager: Clare Sheridan

Accent/Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley

Scenic Artist: Russell Carey

Set Builders: Glen Hamilton & Dave Hodgkins

Props: Eva Felding

Graphic Designer: Mel Jensen

Cast

Sarah Ballantyne, Jess Bell, Amy Bloink, Mike Booth, Annie Byron, Kim Clifton, Romney Hamilton, Martelle Hammer, Miranda Huttley, Deborah Jones, Lara Kocsis, Madeline Kunstler, Kira McLennan 

Photo credit: Phil Erbacher @theaterbacher