With her play The Children’s Hour, Lillian Hellman was something of a prophet. Written in 1934, it foretells the coming of The Crucible and the artistic backlash against the McCarthyism of the 50s. Its melodramatics, however, are completely without the Puritan gravity of Miller’s play.

The story is based on the scandal that erupted when a student at a Scottish boarding school accused her teachers of having a lesbian affair. Hellman’s transposition of this true story to the stage retains the scandal, but doesn’t miss an opportunity to moralize on the consequences of lies and rumor in the context of class distinctions.

Martha and Karen run the boarding school in question. They’re working class women who have scrimped and saved for years to finally purchase the land on which their school stands. Things have been going swimmingly thus far, and the women are living their modest dream and now making enough profit so that Karen can marry Joe, the town’s resident doctor. And they can finally send the flighty Aunt Lily, Martha’s relative who incessantly muses on her heyday in the theater, on a long trip to get her out of their hair.

The students’ lessons are going well and all are ostensibly happy at the school – all except for Mary Tilford, a spoiled and parentless girl. She is now in the care of her grandmother, the matriarch Mrs. Amelia Tilford, and influential patrician with financial investment in the school. Upon first introduction to Mary, she seems harmless. She’s late for her lessons, apparently a habit with her, and Karen punishes her. When the teachers leave, the revelation of her mercurial nature is like a slap in the face. With her machinations and manipulations, Mary exerts complete control over everyone around her, changing her entire personality in the blink of an eye.

To say that Mary has a problem with authority is a gross understatement. The desire to be back with her grandmother, whom she can control with a sweet and disingenuous smile, is strong. After she runs away from school, she knows she must make her return impossible. Through blackmailing her fellow students, she begins a rumor that moves precipitously to destroy the lives of Martha and Karen. The women sue for slander, but Aunt Lily refuses to answer her subpoena to testify on their behalf. Thus they cannot win their case, and the rumor is as good as true.

Hellman’s script takes a turn towards melodrama in the third act, but to both the director’s and the cast’s credit, they staunchly refuse to follow the playwright’s lead. After the girls are pulled from the school, the house becomes and painful and eerily quiet reminder of the life before the condemning verdict. Visiting director Austin Pendleton, a Tony nominee and member of Chicago’s famous Steppenwolf Theatre, achieves well the weighty presence of silence here.

And in this silence, Julie Baber as Karen thrives. Although greatly disturbed by the rift in her relationship with Joe, she must be there for Martha (played by a solid Caitlin Egleson), who hitherto seemed the stronger of the two. The end of the play is hers for the taking. Indeed she doesn’t fail in doing this, with a combination of a new self-realization of strength and delicate emotion. But up until that point, Elizabeth Knaus as Mary Tilford is captivating. Mary is more than a precocious child who needs discipline; sometimes it seems that an exorcism is in order. Knaus moves between possessed fury and charming sweetness with dexterity.

Thanks to the skilled ensemble, college-aged students in the roles of young girls never seem awkward or forced. They fit so well that after seeing this production, it’s hard to imagine any other age actors playing these girls. It seems fitting that, with all of the powerful women onstage, the competent Quinlan Corbett as Dr. Joe is bland and lacks substance.

Though the shocked reaction of the accusation of lesbianism may seem outmoded, the power of lies and rumors are just as applicable today as they were in 1934. In fact, they later turned out to be quite powerful for the playwright as well as many of her contemporaries. Hellman, branded as a Communist, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was subsequently blacklisted.

The ending comes in the form of a bumpy third act that ends with a little too much preaching and moralizing for any audience to easily swallow. The Children’s Hour, though, deals with its subject matter no less intriguing than its posterity, The Crucible. But it is Pendleton and his cast, by maneuvering the outdated and moralizing melodramatics with grace, who finally make it so absorbing.

The Children’s Hour will be playing at Smith tonight through Sat. at the Hallie Flanagan Studio Theatre. Call (413) 585-ARTS for tickets.