Still, it is not the themes nor the variations in style of her plays that have made Hellman one of the most successful American playwrights, but rather her mastery of dramatic technique. A clear depiction of character; pithy dialogue; a remorselessly rising line of action; unavoidable, unyielding confrontations--the well-made play in the best sense of the phrase--are all trademarks of Hellman's dramaturgy.
Hellman was born on 20 June 1906, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the only child of Max and Julia Newhouse Hellman. In her memoirs, Hellman sees many correspondences between members of her family and characters in her plays. She remembers her mother as an eccentric, passive, overly religious woman who enjoyed a simple life and would have been happier had she stayed "in the backlands of Alabama," a description reminiscent of Birdie in The Little Foxes. So far apart were the temperaments of mother and daughter--for Hellman was always a spirited, independent child--that only after her mother had been dead for five years did she realize how much she had loved her. She also recalls her mother's upper-middle-class New York family, whose gatherings often resembled bitter stockholders' meetings, where much tension and talk about money and possessions filled the room.
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