The Little Foxes first opened on Broadway in 1939 with Tallulah Bankhead as Regina Hubbard Giddens, the woman at the center of this story which takes place in a small Alabama town in 1900. The play is a rich feast of family dysfunction and greed set in the south when times and fortunes had changed after the Civil War. Other actresses who played this juicy role on Broadway included Anne Bancroft, Elizabeth Taylor and Stockard Channing. Bette Davis did the movie. I had never seen the play or the film until now.
This Manhattan Theater Club production stars Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon who alternate the role of strong-willed Regina with her fragile sister-in-law Birdie in different performances. I saw Ms. Linney as Regina and Ms. Nixon as Birdie in their Tony Award nominated roles.
The Little Foxes deserves its status as a classic. The good versus bad morality tale is a bit obvious but who cares when the actors have such interesting characters to play, fantastic confrontations and, especially in the case of Birdie, heart-breaking self-revelations. My Cynthia Nixon theater experiences have been mixed in the past: Rabbit Hole (enjoyed) and Wit (not so much). Ms. Nixon was simply awesome here, fully disappearing into the character of Birdie with every big moment perfectly realized. She won the Tony against an extremely strong group of nominees from Sweat and A Doll’s House, Part 2. Having seen them all now, it’s hard to argue.
Regina’s husband, Horace Giddens, was played by Richard Thomas, also Tony nominated. At the start of the play, Horace is sick and away from the family. When he returns in Act II, Mr. Thomas plays a convincing head of household with a seriously troubling illness. Regina’s brothers, played by Michael McKean and Darren Goldstein, were perfectly inky. A very strong cast overall in a play that is a period piece but still has a lot to say about how people are treated and how greed drives our culture and relationships. Still topical today.
I did not love Ms. Linney’s Regina but she was fine in the part. I felt there needed to be more edge to this beast of a woman. Plus, and this happens for me with some actors, you can see the acting and not the character. That said, this play was a superb revival and a great opportunity to understand why Lillian Hellman’s work remains a classic of the theater.