THE LITTLE FOXES
By Lillian Hellman. Directed by Ron Ritchell. Set and lighting design by Jeff Gardiner. Costumes by Seth Bodie. With Carol Parker, Jensen Auuste, Lori Glaser, Robert Bonotto, Bill Folman, Kippy Goldfarb, Fred Robbins, Ed Peed, Andriana Gnap, and John Davin. Presented by Lyric West Theatre Company at Massachusetts Bay Community College, Wellesley, Wednesday through Sunday through March 18.

The Little Foxes is a creaky old potboiler that reeks of wilted magnolia and long-discarded racial stereotypes. That it has a stage life at all these days is due in large measure to the bravura leading role, that of Regina Giddens. Since the play’s premiere in 1939 starring the charismatic Tallulah Bankhead, the part has been a magnet for actresses of a certain age and with big personalities. (Bette Davis starred in the film version. The composer Marc Blitzstein set the play as an opera, called it Regina, and wrote a juicy musical part for the steel-willed heroine.)

There can be little doubt that the brilliant success of Gone with the Wind — first the best-selling 1936 book, then the movie, which also appeared in 1939 — influenced The Little Foxes. With her honeyed Southern charm, shrewd business acumen, and unscrupulous self-seeking, Regina is cast from the same mold as Scarlett O’Hara. Regina, however, cannot blame a war-ravaged ordeal of starvation and dispossession for her avarice. She has always been comfortable; she just wants more. She and her similarly conniving brothers, Ben and Oscar Hubbard, along with Oscar’s son Leo, represent the “little foxes” of the title, the despoilers of the vineyard of love. (The reference comes from the Song of Songs.)

Regina’s opposite number, her sister-in-law Birdie, is the counterpart of Melanie Wilkes, but without the inner strength. The mistreated, aristocratic Birdie, who drinks too much, is allied with the other “softer” characters, including Regina’s ill husband Horace, her daughter Alexandra, and Addie and Cal, freed slaves now working as household help. They are the “tender grapes” of the vineyard, whose sweetness is threatened by the cabal of foxes.

With a story that details the Hubbards’ scheme to build a cotton mill in the Deep South of 1900, playwright Hellman stirs up a noxious stew of betrayal, theft, murder, and love starved on the vine. There are lots of heated confrontations and several big “arias” for major characters, but the ending is oddly inconclusive and unpersuasive. The play just peters out. One wonders whether Hellman might have intended a sequel. (In fact, she wrote a prequel, Another Part of the Forest, which starred Patricia Neal in a 1946 Tony Award–winning turn as the young Regina.)

The Lyric West production of Foxes is a respectable realization of the play with a good ensemble cast and a nicely nuanced performance of Regina by Kippy Goldfarb. Ron Ritchell has set the show in Jeff Gardiner’s comfortably appointed late-Victorian sitting room. And costumer Seth Bodie has outfitted the company handsomely; the rich gowns for Regina and the deliciously innocent dresses for Alexandra are highlights.

As Regina, Goldfarb brings the right blend of charm, physical beauty, and willfulness to the part. Perhaps others have brought more bravura and power, but I liked the fact that this Regina remains in scale with the rest of the cast. Lori Glaser’s Birdie, on the other hand, is disappointing. This character should be the touchstone for all the tender feelings of the drama. In her scene of self-revelation, brought on by too much elderberry wine, she should wring your heart. But Glaser isn’t fragile or vulnerable enough. At moments — when her laughter brays too loudly, for example — she even seems annoying. No wonder her brutish husband Oscar is always shushing her.

Among the standouts in the remaining cast is Bill Folman as Leo. Just the right age, he is note-perfect as this morally compromised, none-too-bright, easygoing young thug-in-the-making. Andriana Gnap, as Alexandra, is his perfect counterpoise: genuinely sweet, capable of sacrifice in the name of love, and with reserves of strength that she discovers as the story unfolds. Ed Peed seems born to play the part of Ben Hubbard, so naturally does he assume the character’s surface geniality and subcutaneous viciousness. John Davin, as Horace Giddens, projects the cunning and vengefulness of his character but is less persuasive showing the father’s tender, loving side.

Issue Date: March 8-15, 2001