- Liz Lauren
- Axis of evil, Little Foxes style
A few Sundays ago, while we were waiting for a matinee to start, I had the pleasure of listening to the unvarnished commentary of the elderly man on my right as he flipped through the program. He made some remarks about the photos and credits of the cast, and then he reached an ad for the Goodman’s new production of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes.
The Little Foxes concerns the machinations and manipulations within a southern family in 1900 after they find a Chicago investor to help them bring a cotton mill to their town. The attraction to the Yankee is that southern blacks will work for $3 a week while unionized northern workers are demanding $8. The members of the Hubbard family, meanwhile, are practically licking their lips in anticipation of the millions they’ll be making, exploited workers be damned. In 1900, there were Hubbards all over America, as Ben Hubbard points out in one major speech, and their collective actions will lead, a few decades later, to the Great Migration and the transformation of America, a transformation that was depicted in the Goodman’s previous production, August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, set in 1960s Pittsburgh. When Wishcamper first proposed the Goodman do The Little Foxes, he didn’t know that Two Trains would also be running this season, but he thinks their proximity on the schedule is a happy coincidence.
And, in some ways, contemporary theatergoers may have a clearer view of Hellman’s intentions. “I do think Hellman wanted the audience to relate and to root for Regina,” Wishcamper says. “In the 30s, audiences found her dismissible as evil. It’s hard not to see. But she doesn’t have a lot of options. She’s a woman with no money of her own, no control. Her only choice is to be stronger and smarter than the men around her. It’s easier for an audience today to have the relationship I imagine Hellman wanted us to have with the character. We’ve been sincerely trying to craft an entertainment and push aspects of the play that Hellman wanted to be uncomfortable and challenging.”
