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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO
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30foxes
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1930s) The Little Foxes
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1930s Highlights
Theater
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
The Little Foxes
</hdr>
<body>
<p>(March 6, 1939)
</p>
<p> The Little Foxes is the season's most tense and biting drama--as tense and biting as was Playwright Lillian Hellman's The
Children's Hour. From the Song of Solomon comes the title: "Take
us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines..." Study
of a rapacious Southern family on the make at the turn of the
century. The Little Foxes catches the Hubbards--who by sharp
bargaining and hard ways have achieved small town prosperity--on the point of becoming heel-grinding, big-time industrialists.
</p>
<p> Oscar Hubbard (Carl Benton Reid) is mean, tight-lipped,
greedy, his brother Ben (Charles Dingle) shrewder, more capable,
more sardonic; their sister Regina (Tallulah Bankhead) grandly
and coldly ambitious for wealth, power, position. The trio's
business schemes require the financial help of Regina's dying
husband; and, sick of their vulpine methods, he refuses it. Out
of this deadlock springs powerful drama of intramural conspiring
and double-crossing, theft and virtual murder.
</p>
<p> With such implacable people Playwright Hellman has dealt
implacably, exerting against them a moral pressure to match
their own immoral strength. Both the Hubbards and their
playwright-inquisitor work at a pitch too relentless for real
life. But it is the special nature of the theatre to raise
emotions to higher power, somewhat simplifying, somewhat
exaggerating, but tremendously intensifying. Playwright Hellman
makes her plot crouch, coil, dart like a snake; lets her big
scenes turn boldly on melodrama. Melodrama has become a word to
frighten nice-nelly playwrights with; but, beyond its own power
to excite, it can stir up genuine drama of character and will.
Like the dramatists of a hardier day, Lillian Hellman knows
this, capitalizes on it, brilliantly succeeds at it.
</p>
<p> For Tallulah Bankhead--who, since her return from England
in 1933, has floundered around in uncongenial roles--The
Little Foxes offers a chance for powerful acting, and she takes
it. She plays the masterful Regina with authority and insight.
Herman Shumlin has directed the play in a style worthy of its
significance and its star.</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>