Review: "Little Foxes" Has Wickedly Sharp Teeth

Regina Giddens is a woman born too early. 

In "The Little Foxes," perhaps Lillian Helman's best-known play, it is 1899 and Regina is a brilliant strategist trapped in small-town Alabama, where most of the business decisions are made by men.

She is plotting to get the lion's share of her family company, which she hopes will buy her freedom and a move to Chicago. But her rivals are her brothers, who each want as much as possible for themselves, and her ill husband, who cares less about money than he does about respect.

Her opposite — the woman she might have been, had she been kinder and more naive, had more moral qualms, or cared more about happiness and family than money — is her her sister-in-law Birdie. Instead of clawing her way up the food chain like Regina, Birdie has let herself sink into a lacy nostalgia for the family's lost antebellum plantation. She is, both literally and figuratively, beaten by the system.

Daniel Sullivan's production is thrilling. In a stroke of casting genius, Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternate in the Regina and Birdie roles at different performances. You can see both — and you should — but I only saw one, with Linney as Regina and Nixon as Birdie. 

Now, I can't imagine it any other way.

What struck me hardest is how rounded these characters are. In Linney's hands, Regina is a predatory CEO in a bustle. She wants power over her own life (and money) and if others suffer in order to get what she wants, well, that's the cost of playing. Birdie, as played by Nixon, is a woman who sees her powerlessness so clearly that she turns to alcohol to fog the memories. She knows how people see her — but she has a moral backbone and is not a fool. 

The best part? Both women characters are too strong to be merely victims. 

This is a compelling play about power and its abuses. And with these two actresses in these roles, it's also a complex character study. This is one you shouldn't miss. 

"The Little Foxes"

By Lillian Hellman; directed by Daniel Sullivan

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre; through June 18