Three very different plays that examine the careers of teachers
yet all have one thing, in common- the minefield that can be schools as we
witness stage versions of teachers being dealt with unfairly or unjustly.
We will read them in chronological order, before viewing some
scenes from each on screen.
The Children's Hour is a
1934 American play by Lillian Hellman. Set
in an all-girls boarding school run
by two women, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie. It was first staged on
Broadway in 1934.
After writing one unsuccessful play Hellman wrote The
Children's Hour to teach herself how to write a play. Believing that she
would do better to find a subject based in fact, Dashiell Hammett suggested the
idea after he read Bad Companions (1930), a true-crime anthology by
William Roughead. It related an incident that took place in 1810 at a school in
Edinburgh. A student named Jane Cumming accused her schoolmistresses, Jane
Pirie and Marianne Woods, of having an affair in the presence of their pupils.
Some critics perceived the work as a "melodrama" with
each character being either completely good or completely bad but Hellman
responded in a 1965 interview that none of her characters were completely good
or bad.
In 1961, the play was adapted, for film directed by William Wyler
and starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner. In the UK, it
was released under the title The Loudest Whisper. A revival starring
Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss, directed by Ian Rickson, was presented at
London's Harold Pinter Theatre in 2011.
The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan, seen by many as
his best work, was first performed on 8 September 1948 at the Phoenix Theatre,
London. It was originally one of two short plays, jointly titled
"Playbill"; the companion piece being Harlequinade, which forms the
second half of the evening. It is set in a boys' public school and the Classics
teacher in the play, Crocker-Harris, is believed to have been based on
Rattigan's own Classics tutor at Harrow School, J. W. Coke Norris (1874-1961). In
the play, After eighteen years of
teaching there, today is Crocker-Harris' last day before moving on to a
position at another school.
In the original
production, Crocker-Harris was played by Eric Portman, and his wife by Mary
Ellis. The play has been adapted twice for the cinema, and many times for
television. The 1951 film version, starring Michael Redgrave as Crocker-Harris,
won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival, one for Rattigan's screenplay (with
which he lengthened the original stage version for the final speech), the other
for Redgrave's performance. It was remade in 1994, starring Albert Finney,
Michael Gambon and Greta Scacchi Another made-for-TV version in 1985 starred
Ian Holm as the main character.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a 1966 stage play based on the
novel by Muriel Spark and adapted by Jay Presson Allen. It starred Vanessa
Redgrave and Olivia Hussey, and later transferred to Broadway.
Jean Brodie is a teacher at an all-girls school in Edinburgh,
Scotland, in the 1930s. Brodie is known for her tendency to stray from the
school's curriculum, to romanticize fascist leaders such as Benito Mussolini
and Francisco Franco, and to believe herself to be in the prime of life. Brodie
devotes her energy and attention to girls she sees as special or malleable, who
are referred to as the "Brodie Set". At the play's outset, the Brodie
Set is composed of four 12-year-old junior schoolgirls: Sandy, Monica, Jenny,
and Mary McGregor.
The critic Vincent Canby stated "Allen created a much better play
than is generally recognized. Roles like that of Miss Jean Brodie don't often
write themselves"
It is best known as a film adapted from the stage play. The film
stars Maggie Smith in the title role as an unrestrained teacher at a girls'
school in Edinburgh. Celia Johnson, Robert Stephens, (Maggie Smith's husband at
the time). Pamela Franklin, and Gordon Jackson are featured in supporting
roles.
Marlborough Summer School will be
providing copies of all three texts.
I look forward to welcoming you on this new course
