The revival of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour has again reminded us that when adroitly treated, whether seriously or humorously, gossip and its handmaiden scandal combine to remain one of the most completely fascinating themes in the dramatic catalogue. (p. 49)

[The Children's Hour] still deserves a repetition of its prosperity on the score of its considerable merit as a piece of playmaking and as a tight and intelligent melodrama, let alone its uncommonly deft triumph over materials that in less gifted hands might easily have been productive only of a cheap showshop sensationalism. It is what Miss Hellman deliberately has not done that lends some size to what, were it tastelessly done to a turn, would have been largely sub-Brieux or the kind of thing with which Al Woods used to scare the very three-sheets off the billboards. Restraint, in a word, has been Miss Hellman's best critical weapon, and her play, which as almost everyone by now knows deals with malicious gossip that accuses two women of an unnatural relationship and brings in its wake the wreck of their personal and professional lives, not only retains all the suspensive drive it initially had but is, to boot, better by far than most of the plays of native origin that the stage has lately offered. (p. 50)

There has always been one element in the otherwise cunningly written play that has bothered me. It is the business of having the child whisper her accusations of perversion against the two school mistresses into her grandmother's ear because, she insists, she can not bring herself to speak them aloud. Why can't she? Everything in her character would not only allow her to speak them openly but would indeed gratify her in the proclaiming of them. It is not the child that is hesitant about articulating them; it is the playwright who evidently has qualms about putting them into words and who shrinks from possible censorship (vide The Captive). Miss Hellman has cheated. (pp. 51-2)