River City Rep Unleashes
A Beautiful Monster With "Foxes"
by Alexandyr Kent
The Shreveport Times
akent@gannett.com
The River City Repertory Theatre debuted with a meticulously crafted and engaging production of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" on Thursday night. It was staged at The Strand Theatre in Shreveport before what appeared to be a near-sellout crowd.
Helmed by director Patric McWilliams, this Actors' Equity-approved production serves as a promising beginning for the River City Rep. It also marks a return to the local theatre scene for McWilliams and long-time collaborator, Robert Buseick, who both left Centenary College and the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse in 2005 and then formed this professionally sanctioned company.
The set and costume designs for "The Little Foxes" are exquisite. The cast is solid from top to bottom. And the drama unfolds as freshly as if the dialogue were written on the stage.
"The Little Foxes" (1939) is about a moneyed Southern family that destroys itself through greed. Set in a small town in 1900, three Hubbard siblings are working to raise 51 percent of the funds needed to build a cotton mill, which apparently will be quite profitable. A Chicago investor, who leaves the play early to let the Hubbards sort out the details, is putting up the remaining 49 percent.
Two of the siblings, Oscar and Ben, have come up with their shares, but the remaining sibling, Regina, is holding out. She refuses to get her share from her sick husband, Horace, until she can secure a bigger piece of the profits.
Sibling rivalry escalates into a full-on family conflict, pitting the siblings against each other and against other family members brought into the fight by marriage.
At its core, "The Little Foxes" is about the corrosive influence of greed on both the American family and American values at large. When money becomes the only measure of self-worth, Hellman suggests, it can only amount to moral ruin.
Anne Gremillion plays Regina as an opportunistic wife who is more concerned about her prospects for a prodigal future than the health of her dying husband. Gremillion makes Regina thoroughly unlikable and unsympathetic, as she must, wearing a stony smile which reaches back to her ears. Her decorum is forced and her body stiff, giving us the impression she is a cold human being whose heart stopped beating for compassion long, long, ago.
Ben Tyler plays Ben, who is the most charming of the three siblings by leaps and bounds. Carrying his well-fed belly forward, Ben leans back on his heels as if he delights in devouring whatever opponent he faces, whether it be a glass of port or a disagreeable sibling. Tyler exudes an aura of entitlement, and it's hard not to admire a man who so delights in being despicable.
Rounding out the siblings is John Gayle as Oscar, a man who frequently loses his temper and physically and verbally abuses his wife, Birdie. Gayle is always combative on stage, and we get the sense that he battles his family to cover up the fact he's the weakest of the three siblings.
McWilliams smartly puts these three players in positions of power throughout the three acts—by making them the focal points of the drama and forcing the remaining spouses, children and servants to play second fiddle. No matter how badly the Hubbards behave, they always look stronger than the people whose lives they destroy.
Jim Montgomery puts in a solid performance as Horace, the ailing husband, often confined to a wheelchair, who can only protest his wife's designs through the sonority of his voice.
Jodie Glorioso finds strength in the tragic Birdie, who fights hard to retain the traces of innocence mostly beaten out of her when she married Oscar.
What is perhaps most compelling about this production is how confining the siblings' pursuit of wealth appears to be. The well-tailored clothes that wrap their bodies, the high marble columns backstage that obstruct the view to the outside world—all the elements of the set and costume design conspire to prevent the Hubbards from ever making connections with the world outside.
It's too much to hope that the Hubbards are gone, but this production makes them appear trapped in 1900, scheming desperately to find a road to the future. It's a small comfort for the conscience, and a wonderful first gift from the River City Rep.
