Retelling queer stories

In 1934, Lillian Hellman wrote one of her most controversial plays—The Children’s Hour. Originally, this play follows the story of two women who own and run a boarding school for girls. A troublesome student, Mary, decides that she doesn’t like the punishment she has received, so she tells her grandmother, a wealthy and popular woman of the town, that she has seen the two schoolteachers kissing each other. In telling this lie, the women are faced with losing the school, their reputation, and their social lives. One of the women, Martha, realizes that she does, in fact, have feelings for her friend, Karen. In realizing this information, Martha leaves the room and kills herself out of shame.