The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman

Lillian Hellman

Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...

. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 in the Song of Solomon

Song of songs

Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...

 in the King James version of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." Set in a small town in Alabama in 1900, it focuses on the struggle for control of the family business.

The fictional Hubbards in the play are reputedly drawn from Lillian Hellman's Marx relatives. Hellman's mother was Julia Newhouse of Demopolis, Alabama

Demopolis, Alabama

Demopolis is the largest city in Marengo County, Alabama, United States. The population was 7,483 at the time of the 2010 United States Census....

. Julia Newhouse's parents were Leonard Newhouse, a Demopolis wholesale liquor dealer, and Sophie Marx, of a successful Demopolis banking family. According to Hellman, Sophie Marx Newhouse never missed an opportunity to belittle and mock her father for his poor business sense in front of her and her mother. The discord between the Marx and Hellman families was to later serve as the inspiration for the play.

Plot

The focus is on Southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 aristocrat Regina Hubbard Giddens, who struggles for wealth and freedom within the confines of an early 20th century society where a father considered only sons as legal heirs. As a result, her avaricious brothers Benjamin and Oscar are independently wealthy, while she must rely upon her sickly, wheelchair-using husband Horace for financial support.

Regina's brother Oscar has married Birdie, his much-maligned, alcoholic wife, solely to acquire her family's plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 and its cotton fields. Oscar now wants to join forces with his brother, Benjamin, to construct a cotton mill

Cotton mill

A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....

. They approach their sister with their need for an additional $75,000 to invest in the project. Oscar initially proposes marriage between his son Leo and Regina's daughter Alexandra - first cousins - as a means of getting Horace's money, but Horace and Alexandra are repulsed by the suggestion. When Regina asks Horace outright for the money, he refuses, so Leo, a bank teller, is pressured into stealing his uncle Horace's railroad bonds

Bond (finance)

In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...

 from the bank's safety deposit box.

Horace, after discovering this, tells Regina he is going to change his will in favor of their daughter, and also will claim he gave Leo the bonds as a loan, thereby cutting Regina out of the deal completely. When he suffers a heart attack during this chat, she makes no effort to help him. He dies within hours, without anyone knowing his plan and before changing his will. This leaves Regina free to blackmail her brothers by threatening to report Leo's theft unless they give her 75% ownership in the cotton mill (it is in Regina's mind, a fair exchange for the stolen bonds). The price Regina ultimately pays for her evil deeds is the loss of her daughter Alexandra's love and respect. Regina's actions cause Alexandra to finally understand the importance of not idly watching people do evil. She tells Regina she will not watch her be "one who eats the earth," and abandons her. Having let her husband die, alienated her brothers, and driven away her only child, Regina is left wealthy but completely alone.

Original Broadway production

Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Bankhead

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...

 starred as Regina Giddens, when the play premiered on February 15, 1939 at the National Theatre

Nederlander Theatre

David T. Nederlander Theatre is a 1,232-seat Broadway theatre located at 208 West 41st Street, in New York City . One of the Nederlander Organization's nine Broadway theatres, the legacy of the theatre began with David Tobias Nederlander, for whom the theatre is named.Built by Walter C...

. It ran for 410 performances, before its extensive tour of the United States. The opening night cast also included Carl Benton Reid

Carl Benton Reid

Carl Benton Reid was an American actor. He achieved fame on the Broadway stage in 1939 as Oscar Hubbard, one of Regina Giddens's greedy, devious brothers in the play The Little Foxes, and made his film debut reprising his role opposite Bette Davis in the 1941 film version...

 as Oscar, Charles Dingle

Charles Dingle

Charles Dingle was an American stage and film actor.He was best-known for his role as Ben Hubbard in The Little Foxes and for his role as a senator in the film version of Call Me Madam...

 as Benjamin, Frank Conroy

Frank Conroy (actor)

Frank Parish Conroy was a British film and stage actor who appeared in many movies, notably The Little Minister, The Ox-Bow Incident, All My Sons, The Threat, The Royal Family of Broadway, The Young Philadelphians and The Day the Earth Stood Still...

 as Horace, Patricia Collinge

Patricia Collinge

Patricia Collinge was an Irish American actress. She was born in Dublin, Ireland.-Early life:She was born to F. Channon Collinge and Emmie Russell. Her birth name was Eileen Cecilia Collinge. Collinge was educated first by a visiting governess and then at a girls' school. She took dancing and...

 as Birdie, Dan Duryea

Dan Duryea

Dan Duryea was an American actor, known for roles in film, stage and television.-Early life:Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Duryea graduated from White Plains Senior High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the Sphinx Head Society...

 as Leo, and Florence Williams as Alexandra. The production was produced and directed by Herman Shumlin. Eugenia Rawls

Eugenia Rawls

Eugenia Rawls was an American actress.After attending the University of North Carolina, she moved to New York and made her Broadway debut in 1934 as Peggy Rogers in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour...

 replaced Williams later in the run.

Revivals

Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...

 directed a production that opened on October 26, 1967 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre

Vivian Beaumont Theatre

The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a theatre located in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The structure was designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, and Jo Mielziner was responsible for the design of the stage and interior.The Vivian...

 in Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...

, then transferred to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre

Ethel Barrymore Theatre

The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 243 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan, named for actress Ethel Barrymore....

. It ran a total of 100 performances. The cast included Anne Bancroft

Anne Bancroft

Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....

 as Regina, Richard A. Dysart as Horace. Margaret Leighton as Birdie, E.G. Marshall as Oscar, George C. Scott

George C. Scott

George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...

 as Benjamin, and Austin Pendleton

Austin Pendleton

Austin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:...

 as Leo. Costume design was by Patricia Zipprodt

Patricia Zipprodt

Patricia Zipprodt was an American costume designer. She was known for her technique of painting fabrics and thoroughly researching a project's subject matter, especially when it was a period piece...

. Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

said, "An admirable revival of Lillian Hellman's 1939 play in Lincoln Center demonstrates how securely bricks of character can be sealed together with the mortar of plot. Anne Bancroft, George C. Scott, Richard Dysart and Margaret Leighton are expertly guided by Director Mike Nichols through gilt-edged performances."

Austin Pendleton directed a production that ran at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale for three weeks and the Kennedy Center

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 for six weeks before opening on Broadway, after eight previews, on May 7, 1981 at the Martin Beck Theatre

Al Hirschfeld Theatre

The Al Hirschfeld Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 302 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by architect G. Albert Lansburgh for vaudeville promoter Martin Beck, the theatre opened as the Martin Beck Theatre with a production of Madame Pompadour on November 11, 1924. It...

. It ran for 123 performances. The cast included Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

 as Regina, Tom Aldredge

Tom Aldredge

Thomas Ernest "Tom" Aldredge was an American television, film and stage actor.-Life and career:Aldredge was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Lucienne Juliet and W. J. Aldredge, a colonel in the United States Army Air Corps...

 as Horace, Dennis Christopher

Dennis Christopher

Dennis Christopher is an American actor. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is known for playing Dave Stoller in Breaking Away and tragic film buff psychopath Eric Binford in Fade to Black....

 as Leo, Maureen Stapleton

Maureen Stapleton

Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...

 as Birdie, and Anthony Zerbe

Anthony Zerbe

Anthony Jared Zerbe is an American stage, film and Emmy-winning television actor. Notable film roles include the post-apocalyptic cult leader Matthias in The Omega Man, a 1971 film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I Am Legend; Milton Krest in the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill;...

 as Benjamin. Costume design was by Florence Klotz

Florence Klotz

Florence Klotz was an American costume designer on Broadway and film.-Biography:Originally named as Kathrina Klotz, she later changed her name to "Florence" and was often nicknamed "Flossie"....

. In a pre-Broadway opening article in Time, Gerald Clarke

Gerald Clarke

Gerald B. Clarke was the principal secretary to the Rhodesian Cabinet throughout the existence of the Rhodesian Front Government...

 reported nearly $1 million worth of tickets had been sold during the week following the first New York Times ad announcing Taylor's appearance. She was nominated for both the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play

Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play

This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The award has been presented since 1947, and is for performance in new productions or revivals.-1940s:...

 and the Drama Desk Award

Drama Desk Award

The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...

 for Outstanding Actress in a Play. Tony nominations also went to Pendleton for Best Direction of a Play

Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play

The Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play has been given since 1960. Before 1960 there was only one award for both play direction and musical direction, then in 1960 the award was split into two categories: Dramatic and Musical. In 1976 the Dramatic category was renamed to Play...

, Aldredge for Best Featured Actor in a Play

Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play

This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. The award has been presented since 1949.-1950s:* 1951: Eli Wallach – The Rose Tattoo* 1952: John Cromwell – Point of No Return...

, Stapleton for Best Featured Actress in a Play

Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play

This is a list of winners and nomination of the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress. The award was first presented in 1947.-1940s:* 1947: Patricia Neal – Another Part of the Forest* 1949: Shirley Booth – Goodbye, My Fancy-1950s:...

, and the play itself for Best Reproduction

Tony Award for Best Revival

The Tony Award for Best Revival was presented from 1977 until 1994, when it was split into the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. If there are not enough revivals, it is possible under the current Tony rules for the "Best Revival of a Play or...

.

A 1997 revival, again at the Vivian Beaumont, ran for 27 previews and 57 performances between April 3 and June 15. Directed by Jack O'Brien

Jack O'Brien (director)

Jack O'Brien is an American director, producer, writer and lyricist. He served as the Artistic Director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California from 1981 through the end of 2007....

, the cast included Stockard Channing

Stockard Channing

Stockard Channing is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its...

 as Regina, Kenneth Welsh

Kenneth Welsh

Kenneth Welsh, CM is a Canadian film and television actor . He is known to Twin Peaks fans as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle, and has more recently played the father of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.In 1984 he was nominated for a Genie Award as Best Actor for his...

 as Horace, Brian Kerwin

Brian Kerwin

Brian Kerwin is an American actor.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Kerwin won the Theatre World Award in 1988 for the off-Broadway play Emily. His Broadway theatre credits include the 1997 revival of The Little Foxes and the Elaine May comedy After the Night and the Music in 2005...

 as Oscar, Brian Murray as Benjamin, and Frances Conroy

Frances Conroy

Frances Conroy is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth, the matriarch of the Fisher family, on Six Feet Under, which earned her a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award.-Early life:...

 as Birdie. Murray was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, and John Lee Beatty was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design.

The production was revived at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is an independent, professional theatre company located on the Drew University campus. One of the leading Shakespeare theatres in the USA — serving 100,000 adults and children annually — it is New Jersey's only professional theatre company dedicated to the...

, June 3—28, 2009, with Venida Evans

Venida Evans

Venida Evans is an American television, film, stage and commercial actress. Evans is perhaps best known to audiences for her role as "The Muse" in a series of IKEA television commercials in the United States beginning in 2008....

, Ron Brice, Deanne Lorette, Brian Dykstra, Fisher Neal, Kathryn Meisle, Einar Gunn, Philip Goodwin, Lindsey Wochley, Bradford Cover, and directed by Matthew Arbour.

Adaptations

Lillian Hellman wrote the screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 for a 1941 film version

The Little Foxes (film)

The Little Foxes is a 1941 American drama film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Lillian Hellman is based on her 1939 play of the same name...

 starring Bette Davis

Bette Davis

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

. In 1949, the play was adapted for an opera entitled Regina

Regina (opera)

Regina is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. It was completed in 1948 and premiered the next year. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism...

by Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein

Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...

.

In 1946, Hellman wrote Another Part of the Forest

Another Part of the Forest

Another Part of the Forest is a 1946 play by Lillian Hellman, a prequel to her 1939 drama The Little Foxes.-Plot synopsis:Set in the fictional town of Bowden, Alabama in June 1880, the plot focuses on the wealthy, ruthless, and innately evil Hubbard family and their rise to prominence...

, a prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

chronicling the roots of the Hubbard family.