Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, a modern American classic, starring Tallulah Bankhead, premiered with great success in 1939 and went on to be filmed in 1941 with Bette Davis. It is regularly revived in the USA.
The play, cold, cynical and abrasive, is an indictment of American greed, materialism and racism. It remains an effective old-fashioned drama offering good parts for an all-star cast. I am surprised it is not performed more often in the UK.
The story centres on the vicious in fighting of two brothers and their sister to become millionaires. They are vulgar, ruthless, middle-aged opportunists, who are not subtle in their avarice and ambition, and are willing to do anything – cheat, lie, steal, starve, murder, commit incest – to achieve their ends.
Benjamin and Oscar (Mark Bonnar and Steffan Rhodri) want to sign a contract with a Chicago dealer to build a factory; but in order to clinch the deal they need their sister’s husband’s money. The brothers prove no match for Regina (Anne-Marie Duff) and she outwits them, taking the lion’s share.
Lillian Hellmann is unashamedly theatrical. In the play’s most famous scene, Regina refuses to get her sick wheel-chair bound husband (John Light) his medicine and sits there watching him die as he crawls up the staircase.
The actors, which also includes Anna Madeley as Oscar’s abused wife, are very good and I enjoyed seeing the play again. I would have enjoyed it even more, had the director, Lyndsay Turner, not updated it by 50 years.
The Little Foxes is set in the Deep South in 1900 and for best results really needs to be played as a period piece in a 19th century house with 19th century costumes, furniture and, above all, a grand period staircase.
The production also, disconcertingly, ends on an abrupt black-out.
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