By Laura Kennelly
A restrained Southern Gothic horror permeates the lives of the rich who yearn to be even richer in Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play The Little Foxes, The Cleveland Play House’s season-opening production at the Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square. Hellman often claimed that she based much of The Little Foxes on her own family. Well, why not? As Southern author Flannery O’Connor famously observed: “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”
Set in a 1900s South still struggling to “rise again” after the Civil War’s devastation, it details one pivotal event in the lives of the grasping, mercenary Hubbard siblings and those unfortunate enough to be related to them. The play draws stark contrast between the plantation mentality (noblesse oblige and all that) and the entrepreneurs pushing their way to the top.
Very similar to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (GWTW was published in 1936 with the film following in 1939, the year Hellman’s play premiered) the drama pits old South gentility who share a patronizing concern for the poor against a new South that cares about little except money. Guess who wins?
The bad guys: Regina Hubbard Giddens (a vivid and relentless Maggie Lacey) could have been cloned from Scarlett O’Hara as she hides murderous responses under a veneer of flirtatious exchanges. (One of her favorite gestures is to stomp her high heel-clad foot on the couch between the legs of any man she argues with.)
When Regina shows how far she will go to win, we already suspected she’d stop at nothing. Of course her brothers, the wife-beating Oscar Hubbard (well-played as a perfectly controlling man by Jerry Richardson) and Benjamin Hubbard (Cameron Folmar persuades us Benjamin will never marry) are just as bad, cheerfully teaching young Leo Hubbard (portrayed by Nick Barbato as a lying little weasel) how to steal.
The good guys: Like the gentle Ashley Wilkes and the truly saintly Melanie Wilkes in GWTW, poor Birdie Hubbard (Oscar’s wife) and Regina’s husband Horace Giddens (a stoic Donald Carrier) are out of their league. Poor Birdie (a suitably fluttery Heather Anderson Boll) drinks too much and rambles on about sharing surplus game with the hungry; all the ailing Horace can do is stay away from home as much as possible and refuse to contribute to the Hubbards’ big plans to create a factory. Alexandra Giddens (charming Megan King) has somehow, despite having Regina as a mother, absorbed the kindly qualities of her dear father so she’s also one of the “good ones.” The good ones love the arts, play the piano, and are as refined as can be.
Others: Northern industrialist William Marshall (a purpose-driven Robert Ellis) yearns for what he fancies as patrician airs he imagines he sees in this Southern family. He’s got the money, now he craves elegance and the arts. A little bit Rhett Butler with his business acumen, he’s dazzled by Southern belles such as Birdie with her opera autographs and Regina with her flirtatious ways.
Director Laura Kepley has added needed nuance to Hellman’s “get even with the family” account through graceful staging, especially when suggesting through actions the true relations between servants and their employers. Sherrie Tolliver, as long-time family maid/nurse/seamstress Abbie, delivers some of the play’s best lines with panache, but it is her stalwart presence at the end (and a Kepley touch) that makes us know life will be better for young Alexandra Giddens. (Loyal servant supporting her young mistress is the same role Mammy had in GWTW.)
Kim Sullivan’s Cal, the manservant who plays along with his bosses’ requests, offers wryly comic hints throughout that his race and occupation do not define him. The glamorous set featuring a grand staircase (again, GWTW) created by Kepley and Lex Liang should get a rave of its own: beautiful–and must have provided quite a workout for the cast who have to run up and down it.
This fine and engrossing production offers as much a message/challenge for contemporary society as it did for audiences in 1939: greed never goes out of fashion. It also establishes the new CPH season as one to watch.
(PS: If this is truly Hellman felt about her family, it’s easy to see why she refused to reproduce despite a short marriage, numerous lovers, and many chances to do so.)
The Little Foxes will run until October 5 in the Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. For tickets or information see http://clevelandplayhouse.com or call 216-241-6000.
Caption:
From left to right: Donald Carrier as Horace Giddens, Heather Anderson Boll as Birdie Hubbard and Megan King as Alexandra Giddens in the Cleveland Play House production of The Little Foxes playing in the Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare, Sept. 12 to Oct. 5, 2014. Photo credit: Roger Mastroianni
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.
Cleveland, OH 44115