Arts » News

Foxes Endures

by Jules Becker
Wednesday Feb 27, 2019

This article is from the February 28, 2019 issue of South End News.


Anne Gottlieb and Craig Mathers in "The Little Foxes". photo credit: :Mark S. Howard
Anne Gottlieb and Craig Mathers in "The Little Foxes". photo credit: :Mark S. Howard  

Lillian Hellman wrote with great conviction against greed and materialism—most notably in her arguably greatest play "The Little Foxes." Isaac Marx, her Jewish peddler great-grandfather, was successful enough to put up a large brick store in the heart of town, but two banker sons and other family members ended up having their clashes. Hellman turned some of these ancestors into the 1939 Broadway drama's Giddens and Hubbard families. Now Lyric Stage Company of Boston is presenting a riveting 80th anniversary revival of the play that continues to resonate with telling insights about prejudice, discrimination against women, marital conflicts and the dark side of capitalism.

The challenges of rocky relationships and human greed hark back to the play's "Song of Songs"—derived title, one suggested by no less an assertive writer than Dorothy Parker. A Shulamite(bride), speaking of her love in author King Solomon's scroll , calls for catching the foxes that spoil Israeli vines—foxes that can be understood allegorically as problems capable of damaging relationships and family tranquility.

In Hellman's well-crafted 1900 South- set play, those foxes involve the sibling rivalries of Regina Giddens and her brothers Benjamin and Oscar Hubbard and the marital rifts of Regina and husband Horace Giddens and Oscar and wife Birdie. Bigotry proves pernicious as Benjamin and Oscar repeatedly invoke the N-word and African American cotton field workers earning shamefully low salaries. At the same time, the greedy brothers look forward with great anticipation to the machinery that Chicago entrepreneur William Marshall is selling them for the family's Alabama cotton fields. Even Oscar and Birdie's son Leo makes serious moral compromises as he violates the privacy of Horace's safety deposit box that holds his stocks and bonds.

With the actual entry of Horace—who has been receiving treatment for his weak heart at John's Hopkins, the three siblings' greed-based plans are called into question. As Horace clashes with his siblings one moment and his scheming wife at another, Hellman not only means to depict empty materialism and false values she had seen in parts of her own family but also decry a growing turn to fascist-like impulses in the world. For those who may not know the play, its uncompromising ending will provide ample food for thought. For Hellman fans, Lyric Stage's sensitive revival is a reason to celebrate.

"The Little Foxes" is a worthy addition to Scott Edmiston's fine track record as a frequent Lyric Stage guest director for classic plays—"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Anna Christie" among them. Anne Gottlieb's complex portrayal of Regina—by turns charming, regal, insidious and ferocious—is a revelation. Her scenes with Craig Mathers—arrestingly vulnerable yet tenacious as Horace—have the perfect combination of feeling and push-pull tension. Will McGarrahan catches the petty cruelty of Oscar's responses with Birdie, while Amelia Broome finds the splendor of kind Birdie's memories and her touching moments with the Giddens' warm daughter Alexandra---played with remarkable candor by Rosa Procaccino. Remo Airaldi catches Benjamin's alternating calm and deceptiveness. Cheryl D. Singleton is a standout as supportive confidante-like maid Addie. Kudos go as well to Janie E, Howland's elegantly expansive set, complete with a large intricate chandelier and pivotal stage left staircase, Gail Astrid Buckley's character-matching period outfits, especially evening dresses and tuxedos, and Karen Perlow's nuanced lighting with evocative use of spotlight.

The biblical little foxes may threaten to spoil Solomon's vines, but Hellman's enduringly prescient play proves a garden well-cultivated with wisdom about women, family life and human values.