The Little Foxes, Young Vic, London, December 2024: The People vs. Lillian Hellman

Lillian Hellman was what was often described in her time as a “broad” — a hard-drinking, hard-swearing, chain-smoking, and relentlessly hardworking woman. She was also one of the greatest playwrights of her generation, her work standing shoulder to shoulder alongside that of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Thornton Wilder. Hellman had an acute eye for structuring a story, and much of her subject matter was ahead of its time, The Children’s Hour, which premiered on Broadway in 1934, is a prime example — a story of false allegations of lesbianism that was groundbreaking for its era. Hellman possessed a fierce intelligence, a biting wit, and a ferocious temper, all of which can be felt vividly in her writing.

Hellman, born in 1905, was a Southern Jew from Louisiana. Her Southern roots provided the inspiration for her most lauded play, The Little Foxes, currently being revived at the Young Vic in a production directed by Lyndsey Turner.

Before writing plays, she began her career in Hollywood as a reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, earning $50 per week to write summaries of novels and periodicals for potential screenplays. After the success of The Children’s Hour, she returned to Hollywood as a screenwriter earning $2,500 per week.

Hellman was and remains a controversial figure, not only for the subject matter of her writing but also for her political beliefs and flexibility with the truth. I, however, am not particularly concerned with the liberties she took with details; what interests me more — and what is a truer indicator of character — is what she didn’t do. Unlike others in Hollywood, Hellman refused to name friends and colleagues before the witch-hunting mob that was the House Un-American Activities Committee, nor did she placate the monstrous Senator Joseph McCarthy. Artists such as Elia Kazan chose to save their film careers by naming names, and though Kazan’s reputation has been tarnished, there is not the same vitriol, which is directed at Hellman for fabricating details, such as claiming to have visited Finland. This smacks of a double standard rooted in misogyny.

Hellman was vociferous in her denunciation of fascism not only publicly but also in her work, such as Watch on the Rhine (revived by the Donmar Warehouse in 2023) and The Searching Wind. She was denied a passport twice, in 1943 and 1944, as U.S. government authorities considered her to be ‘an active communist.’ Hellman described her politics as Stalinist.

Hellman was blacklisted by Hollywood in 1947.

Whatever the truth of her political stance, the bottom line is that she was a great writer. At her best, the plays are so solidly constructed that it would be difficult to find fault with them. However, many critics, both during Hellman’s time and today, fail to separate her beliefs from her talent, choosing instead to review her life rather than her work.

There is often a touch of melodrama in Hellman’s writing, but in her hands, this is not a flaw. American Southerners possess an innate sense of melodrama, which is frequently misunderstood and dismissed. British directors often miss the mark with the work of Hellman and Tennessee Williams, though I quite enjoyed Ellen McDougall’s production of Watch on the Rhine at the Donmar Warehouse, despite the awkwardness of the space — a venue that has housed some of the worst productions of Williams that I have ever seen. What British directors and actors often fail to grasp are the historical and cultural contexts behind Southern affectation and behaviours. As a result, the work remains superficial and overly mannered.

Perhaps Watch on the Rhine mostly worked is because it’s not a “Southern” play. The main characters come primarily from a wealthy family based in Washington D.C., or Europe.

Another excellent British production of Hellman’s work was Ian Rickson’s 2011 West End staging of The Children’s Hour, starring Keira Knightley, Elisabeth Moss, Carol Kane, and the extraordinary Ellen Burstyn. This remains the finest work Rickson has done as a director. His casting was impeccable, with the stellar trio of Americans — Burstyn, Kane, and Moss — complemented by Knightley, who delivered a fantastic performance. The Children’s Hour is another non-Southern work by Hellman, thus avoiding that potential cultural pitfall for Rickson.

The Little Foxes, which premiered on Broadway in 1939, remains Hellman’s most-produced work. The play centres on the Hubbard family, particularly Regina Hubbard-Giddens, a beautiful and strong-willed Southern belle striving to achieve her ambitions in a cutthroat world. While some interpret the play as a battle between Regina and the men in her life — her brothers, the brutish and boring Benjamin and the sadistic Oscar, and her dying husband, Horace — I see The Little Foxes as a story of three women fighting for survival: Regina, her downtrodden sister-in-law Birdie, and her teenage daughter, Alexandra. Their struggles are as much internal as they are external.

Birdie, a member of the Southern aristocracy, is trapped in a loveless and violent marriage. Oscar married her solely to gain control of her family’s plantation and land, and he seems to take great pleasure in physically and emotionally torturing the genteel daughter of one of the South’s once-great families. Oscar’s dim-witted and sadistic son, Leo, is an extension of his father’s cruelty, and Oscar plans for Leo to marry his first cousin, Alexandra. This is his condition for granting Regina a larger share of the profits from the planned cotton mill deal.

Regina has no intention of allowing this sordid union to take place. Neither does Birdie, who loves Alexandra more than her own son, Leo.

Birdie drinks to escape her plight; it is her way of coping with a joyless existence.

Alexandra, Regina and Horace’s daughter, adores her father and has been pampered her entire life, treated like a fragile china doll. Over the course of the play, however, she begins to see the world with greater clarity. She comes to understand the challenges she must confront and the pivotal choices that will shape her future.

At the heart of the play is Regina, who has had to fight for survival her entire life. As a woman in her time, she has never had a level playing field; she has always been underestimated and dismissed. The cotton mill represents her chance at independence and freedom — a way to finally secure control over her own life.

Regina is often described as “conniving” and “scheming”. While this is accurate, her actions are driven partly by necessity and partly by character. Regina uses what she has — her beauty, charm, and, most importantly, her wits — to survive the viper’s nest of a male-dominated world.

In Regina, Hellman created one of the great female roles in the theatrical canon. It takes an actor of great skill and exceptional range to fully bring this complicated, at times funny, clever, and devious character to life.

The world into which Regina was born was one where women had few options. She understands this clearly. Her brothers inherited the family estate, transforming their shares into successful individual enterprises. Now, they plan to combine forces to create a single entity through the mill project, holding a 51% majority share alongside the Northern industrialist William Marshall, thus becoming incredibly wealthy.

Above all, Regina craves independence — both financial and personal. Money is the key; financial independence would allow her to live how, and as she pleases, free from the need of a man. Regina is certain that, had she been born male, she would have been more successful in business than either of her brothers. She has an all or bust mentality towards personal wealth:

“You know what I’ve always said when people told me we were rich? I said I think you should either be a nigger or a millionaire. In between, like us, what for?”

Horace becomes the ultimate obstacle she must overcome to achieve her goal. In contrast, Benjamin and Oscar pose less of a challenge. Regina has a lifetime of experience outmanoeuvring them or, at the very least, keeping them in check.

Horace, unlike her brothers, is in several ways her equal. Not because he is scheming, but because he is a decent human being with a moral compass. As he faces his own imminent death, he becomes increasingly unwilling to placate Regina nor to bow to the insatiable greed of the Hubbard family.

Horace is a cautious man; he’s a banker. During his five-month stay at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, he has ignored the numerous written entreaties to invest in the mill. The Hubbard brothers need his money to complete their share of the required capital, and they are determined to avoid an outsider as a partner. Their mistrust of anyone outside of the family is deeply ingrained.

Several of Hellman’s plays feature Black servants as characters. She imbues these roles with dignity, making them fully developed and thoughtful individuals, steering clear of the stereotypical qualities often associated with such parts. In The Little Foxes, the character of Addie, whom Alexandra views as a mother figure, is Hellman’s most nuanced Black character. Addie not only serves the plot but also has perspectives and opinions, which exist beyond her employers’ concerns.

The relationship between Addie and Alexandra is believable and dramatically significant. Although Addie does not appear in the prequel, Another Part of the Forest (written after The Little Foxes), there is an implication that Addie also raised Regina and knows her better than most. This suggests that Addie may have belonged to Regina’s mother as a slave before emancipation and remained with the family afterward, possibly becoming part of Regina’s dowry.

Hellman frequently includes children or teenagers in her works, and she writes these roles with remarkable sensitivity. They are complex and fully realised individuals. The character of Alexandra in The Little Foxes is no exception. Hellman subtly crafts Alexandra as a character who not only serves the plot but gradually becomes integral, ultimately representing the moral centre of the story and the hope for a better future.

Initially, Alexandra appears naïve and gullible, but it becomes clear that she has inherited more than a touch of her mother’s determination and fighting spirit. Like Regina, she refuses to be a pawn in others’ games. However, unlike her mother, she has the courage to break away and risk a life outside of the Giddens-Hubbard world. She’s willing to embrace the possibility of a better life — even if it may be a difficult one.

The shift in Alexandra’s character, however, may be the most challenging element of the play to accept. While it is somewhat justified dramatically, it can feel more like a manipulation for the sake of the plot than a natural development of her character, as the crucial change seems too rapid to be totally believable.

Though The Little Foxes is fiction, Hellman drew heavily on her own family, particularly the relationship between her parents.

In 1946, Another Part of the Forest opened on Broadway, and is set twenty years before The Little Foxes. The two plays are the theatre equivalent of The Godfather and The Godfather II — the prequel coming after the success of the original and standing on its own as a piece of art. Experiencing both plays in repertory would be fascinating, offering a fuller and even more enlightening view of the family saga. A clever director could make some inspired choices by casting the same actors in both plays.

In both works, Regina dreams of a life in Chicago — a life of fine clothes, culture, and art —worlds apart from the fictional small town of Bowden, Alabama.

Hellman married playwright Arthur Kober in 1925, but they divorced in 1932 after she fell in love with the writer Dashiell Hammett. Though their relationship was long, passionate, and tumultuous, Hellman and Hammett never married.

They shared a deeply intellectually stimulating connection, which greatly influenced Hellman; she was five years Hammett’s junior. More significantly, Hammett, an established writer with well-defined political beliefs, mentored Hellman. It was he who suggested she write what became The Children’s Hour after reading about the true story of false allegations made by a pupil at a Scottish boarding school.

In The Little Foxes, Hellman paints a grim and unsparing portrait of marriage. At Regina’s insistence, she and Horace have not had sex in over a decade, and she bitterly resents the fact that Horace has turned to other women for sexual gratification. Their marriage is marked by mutual disdain and manipulation, reflecting the broader themes of power and control permeating the play.

Birdie’s marriage to Oscar is an even darker picture of marital life. What began as a strategic union for Oscar has devolved into a cycle of cruelty. Birdie endures both physical and emotional abuse, trapped in a loveless relationship, leaving her broken and dependent on alcohol to cope.

Their older brother Benjamin, avoids the pitfalls of marriage altogether, choosing instead to remain a bachelor. However, his devotion to self-interest and financial gain suggests that his bachelorhood is less a pursuit of freedom and more a reflection of his calculated, cold-hearted nature.

Through these characters, Hellman critiques the institution of marriage as a power dynamic in which love and happiness are secondary to control, survival, and social ambition.

Lyndsey Turner has several commendable qualities as a director: she stages productions skilfully and demonstrates a keen eye for good material. However, two of her recent productions — The Crucible at the National and The Little Foxes at the Young Vic — have exposed a significant shortcoming in her work: the poor casting of central characters.

Most notably, she miscast the pivotal role of John Proctor in The Crucible, and she repeats this mistake in The Little Foxes. Casting Anna-Marie Duff as Regina was a misstep. There is something inherently light and airy about Duff, whereas Regina is earthy, substantial, and exudes gravitas. Hellman describes Regina as “40, a handsome woman.” Birdie even quotes Marshall as saying:

“I hope your sister-in-law comes to Chicago. Chicago will be at her feet. He said the ladies would bow to your manners and the men to your looks.”

If Duff were to appear in The Little Foxes, it should be in the role of Birdie — and even then, it should have been a decade ago, as Birdie is also meant to be 40.

Duff tries hard, but is fatally out of her depth here. All of my concerns about her casting, sadly, prove well-founded. The performance is relatively one-note, and that note is played primarily on the surface. She couldn’t be further from Regina Hubbard if she delivered this performance from Aberdeen to the Young Vic stage.

Her physicality undermines the role: her movements are jerky, plodding, and ungraceful. At times, she appears physically awkward or uncomfortable, which detracts from the character’s poise and calculated charm.

Duff is undeniably a talented actor, but not every talented actor is suited to every role. Her qualities and strengths as a performer do not align with the character of Regina. Even the admirable aspects of her performance feel disconnected from the essence of the role. As a result, her portrayal, like the production itself, strays significantly from what Hellman wrote and intended.

I am unsure what the root of Turner’s poor casting decisions are. Is she being badly advised by casting or artistic directors? Does she not understand the qualities required for these roles? Or is it simply a matter of poor taste?

It is often said that directing is 90% casting. If this is true, Turner has some catching up to do. While she knows how to create arresting imagery, and her work is undoubtedly intelligent, there is something missing — beyond the issues with casting.

That said, the production does feature some excellent performances. Freddie MacBruce strikes a perfect balance of grounded comedy and shimmering fear as the servant Cal, while Stanley Morgan’s Leo Hubbard captures the character’s blend of dim-wittedness and malice. Most notably, Eleanor Worthington-Cox excels as Alexandra Hubbard. Her nuanced work injects moments of vibrancy to an otherwise uneven production. She does as good a job as possible with the sometimes jarring shifts in Alexandra’s character, making these moments feel organic, even when the production around her doesn’t. Not only does she hold her own alongside her more seasoned castmates, but she frequently outshines them.

The Young Vic itself is another awkward space — though less frustrating than the Donmar Warehouse, it remains problematic. It is a flexible venue, yet most of its configurations fail to serve a purpose beyond showcasing their flexibility. Consequently, many directors default to an ill-fitting end-on arrangement, as Turner does here. While the decision is understandable, it feels creatively constraining and a missed opportunity. Lizzie Clachan designed the production.

On entering the auditorium, the pre-show music Turner has chosen immediately stands outs; it sounds vaguely like something a Northern British band would have produced circa 1997. Turner then makes the peculiar and erroneous choice of setting the action in what appears to be the 1950s. A crucial textual given circumstance of the play is that the South is still recovering from the Civil War, with its wounds still painfully fresh. For this re-setting to make even a modicum of sense, the text would require far more substantial rewrites than those made by Turner. The changes she implements — simply replacing the term “Niggers” with “Coloureds,” “Blacks,” and “Brothers” — are superficial and reductive.

These attempts to soften the language only serve to dilute the characters’ cruelty. The audience understands the historical context of such language, even within a 1950s setting, and the essential role it plays within Hellman’s narrative. These characters are meant to be ugly human beings, and their vileness should not be diminished. This form of censorship feels unnecessary and disrespectful to the integrity of the work. Would the Young Vic dare to sanitise a Black writer such as August Wilson? Likely not, which raises valid questions about why Hellman’s work is being treated differently.

The memory of the war is a crucial component of the play, as it remains within living memory for most of the principal characters. The Civil War ended in 1865, and the play is set in 1900, which means Regina would have been five years old, and her brothers would have been older when the war ended. The war and its aftermath of devastation would have had an immense impact on them. Removing the play from this reality diminishes its power and meaning.

Perhaps Turner felt a pressure to do something “different” with the play, which is a fashionable mindset amongst directors nowadays, especially when directing a classic or modern classic text. These reinterpretations can be exhilarating when they reveal new layers, or help us to view the work through a unique vision. This production does neither.

If she felt the need to experiment with the play, I would have preferred her to stage it in the round or on a bare stage in modern dress without changing one word of the dialogue. Instead, setting it in the 1950s proves such a misguided choice that it raises questions about her understanding of the material.

The production’s tempo and rhythm are off, especially in Acts One and Two. When it should crackle, the production limps along. Almost every element seems slightly awry. The costumes reveal nothing of character — these well-off Southerners look shabby. Bizarrely, the two servants are better turned out than most of the white characters.

Clachan also misfires by making the Hubbard home too modern. Even with the production’s 1950s setting, the design looks more 2024 than 1954. The furniture pieces are period correct, but the details don’t coalesce into a cohesive whole. This fault, too, mirrors the flaws in Turner’s production.

Turner has also opted to have the same actor play both Marshall and Horace, differentiated only by one character wearing glasses. This feels less like a creative choice and more like an economising measure. The doubling adds little to the production and, if anything, risks diminishing the distinct dynamics each character brings to the story. Another perplexing choice is outfitting the actor as Marshall to resemble Steve Jobs — a baffling anachronism given Turner’s 1950s setting. This inconsistency only further muddles the productions already unclear conceptual vision.

The playing area created by Clachan is so wide that it’s impossible to build any tension — and The Little Foxes is a play that requires tension work. Turner uses several tricks to try to inject intensity, but all fall flat — including Tingying Dong’s thudding sound design, which alternately evokes the rumblings of an earthquake or the sensation of the theatre being positioned above the Northern Line. This does little to elevate the production, which is as wandering as most of the cast’s Southern accents, the worst offenders being John Light as Horace and Steffan Rhodri as Oscar.

As expected, Turner stages the production with skill. There’s a fantastic moment where all the action takes place off-stage — what we hear but don’t see heightens the tension and creates genuine drama.

Turner hits her creative stride after the interval, with a much stronger second half. That said, I wish more attention had been paid to the curtain call, which feels like a disorganised mess. A curtain call is an integral part of a production, and a poorly executed one suggests a director failing to fully carry through their duties. It deserves as much thought and intention as any other element, leaving the audience with a focused, purposeful impression — not the haphazard afterthought Turner provides here.

TKR