It’s been over two decades since Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes last graced our capital’s stages. This long-awaited revival of the 1939 play is directed by Lyndsey Turner and sees celebrated actress Anne-Marie Duff take on the role of Regina Hubbard, a part previously brought to life by Bette Davis in the 1941 film adaptation. The production also marks Kwame Kwei-Armah’s swan song as he steps down as Artistic Director of the Young Vic. His tenure as well as the venue’s 2024 season closes with this memorable melodrama.
It’s a brooding slow-burn that sees Turner masterfully ratcheting up the tension so that by the end of the two acts the entire auditorium is enveloped in a firm embrace. While it takes some time to get there, our efforts are paid off. We leave aware that we’ve seen a seldom performed play expertly revived, while at the same time feeling somewhat grimy for having watched a family’s dirty laundry being aired.
The family in question are the American Deep South residing Hubbards. Brothers Ben (a captivating Mark Bonnar) and Oscar (a brutish Steffan Rhodri) have already made their fortunes from the cotton trade and family inheritance but still want more. Their sister Regina, who as a woman in the early 1900s was not entitled to any inheritance, subsequently married Horace to support herself financially. The brothers are planning to go into business with a Chicago tycoon but to do so they need to drum up some more cash. Horace is their answer, but Regina has other ideas. Family power play ensues as each sibling battles to grab their slice of the pie, even employing their own children as bargaining tools.
Regina Hubbard is surely a dream role for a performer. A strong-willed woman living in a time when her gender was sidelined, the character commands our empathy one moment before repelling us with her monstrous behaviour the next. Duff exudes excellent stage presence and really gets under the skin of the character, carefully, sometimes subtly displaying her various shades before her true colours come to the fore. The theatre is bathed in complete silence during one standout scene until audible murmurs of shock escape the mouths of some entranced audience members.
Andrea Davy as maid Addie also shines and makes the most of the material she is afforded, as does an endearing Freddie MacBruce in his professional stage debut as fellow house worker Cal. Anna Madeley also engages as Oscar’s long-suffering, long-silenced wife. She knows he married her for her aristocratic wealth and resorts to alcohol to transport her out of her depressing reality. Stanley Morgan offers an energetic turn as Oscar’s son Leo, who shares his father’s thirst for money along with his violent tendencies. John Light convinces as Horace – a man both at the end of his life and the end of his tether when it comes to his wife and her siblings. Eleanor Worthington-Cox completes the cast as Regina and Horace’s daughter, who during the course of the play learns some harsh truths about her family.
As bleak as it all might sound, there is a satisfyingly soapy melodrama to the play we can’t help but buy into. Due to its occasionally archaic writing, it’s clear that a high-calibre cast is needed for the piece to stand up in 2024. This incarnation of The Little Foxes pleasingly does just that.
Review by Jonathan Marshall
There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it.
Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it.
After a lifetime spent watching her brothers grow rich, Regina Hubbard (Anne-Marie Duff) has had enough of standing around. When a businessman offers the family the prospect of untold wealth and power, a sequence of events unfolds that sets brother against brother, father against son and Regina against the whole pack of them.
CAST
Benjamin Hubbard – Mark Bonnar
Addie – Andrea Davy
Regina Giddens – Anne-Marie Duff
Horace Giddens/William Marshall – John Light
Cal – Freddie MacBruce
Birdie Hubbard – Anna Madeley
Leo Hubbard – Stanley Morgan
Oscar Hubbard – Steffan Rhodri
Alexandra Giddens – Eleanor Worthington-Cox
CREATIVE
Writer – Lillian Hellman
Director – Lyndsey Turner
Designer – Lizzie Clachan
Lighting Designer – Lucy Carter
Sound Designer – Tingying Dong
Casting Director – Jess Ronane CDG CSA
Wigs, Hair and Make-Up Designer and Supervisor – Kim Kasim
Piano Composition, Choral Arranger and Musical Director – Philippe Cato
Fight Director – Kev McCurdy
Voice and Dialect Coach – Philippe Cato
THE LITTLE FOXES
Young Vic
2 December 2024 to 8 February 2025
