Fiero is a Ph.D. who teaches drama and play-writing at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. In this essay he discusses Hellman's play as both a "well made" play in the realistic tradition and as a tragedy built on a moral dilemma and pattern of development similar to that of William Shakespeare's Othello.
Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour is a realistic thesis play, in a direct line of descent from the work of the great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen (A Doll's House) It is a fair example of the kind of serious play that has dominated the American theater through most of the twentieth century. Such plays deal with social issues or problems, usually using one or two families as the center of their thematic inquiry While many very good plays were written in this tradition, a.....
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