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In January 2006
The UPs presented:
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Lillian Hellman's
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR
January
24th-28th and January 30th-February 4th 2006
All performances begin
at 7.30 p.m.
in the Audimax, Von-Melle-Park 4, University of Hamburg.
Press
Pictures
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Karen Wright and Martha
Dobie are exceptional women. They are college educated. They have taken
a secluded farmhouse and cultivated a school for young women of means.
The extraordinary success enjoyed by this pair is idyllic. Karen
courtship by young Dr. Joe is destined for matrimony. The school is so
successful they have had to hire Martha’s aunt to help in the education
of the students. The Dobie-Wright school is drawing students from some
of America’s finest families. In this atmosphere comes a troubled
child. Young Mary Tilford seems to have a great deal of difficulty
assimilating. Mary is contentious and controlling and she lies.
Injustice, intolerance, oppression and the tyranny of truth are among
the complex themes examined in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour.
Perspectives on understanding and the nature of truth and lies form the
basis of conflict in this play.
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) began her writing career in a time when the
leaders of the literary movement in America tended towards the
political left. Many of these writers, including Hellman, formed a core
of radical liberals that embraced the concepts of socialism.
Clifford Odets, Eugene O’Neill, Dashell Hammett, Arthur Miller and
Theodore Dreiser were among the legion of authors that actively
supported political goals of redistribution of wealth and socialism. In
the social pendulum swing that was crowned by Joseph McCarthy’s House
Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUAS) Hellman was called to
testify. In an answer to the committee’s demand that she name the
people attending those left wing meetings in the 20’s and 30’s she
answered: I cannot and wil not cut my conscience to fit this year’s
fashions. Many of these literary leaders were permanently damaged by
McCarthy’s investigation. Even Hellman was slow to return to writing.
In a possible foreshadowing of her future, The Children’s Hour speaks
to the sometimes life threatening nature of truth and of lies.
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Tickets (€10/€5) can be reserved via phone
(040
42838 4852)
and email (up@uni-hamburg.de)
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