The Little Foxes – Young Vic, London

Writer: Lillian Hellman

Director: Lyndsey Turner

Lillian Hellman’s 1939 The Little Foxes, centred around the business schemings of three siblings in 1900 Alabama, is not as often revived as other theatrical classics set in the southern United States, particularly those by Tennessee Williams. On the evidence of the Young Vic’s new production, that’s both a shame and understandable.

Hellman’s central family involves two brothers attempting to build a new cotton mill. Having secured a 49% stake from an outside investor, they need to secure the funds for the remaining 51%, for which they need their sister, Regina. Or rather, her husband, for this is a world where business is only done by men. But when Regina’s ailing husband Horace refuses, the brothers conspire to “borrow” bonds from his safe deposit box, intending to buy them back in a few months once their profits start rolling in.

Hellman’s family drama speaks about the advance of capitalism in early 20th-century America and how the riches that flowed in the Deep South were retained solely by the white aristocracy by exploiting the black working classes – newly freed from slave labour but hardly any better off. It is easy to imagine how the period setting could still have much to say to its original 1930s audience.

This production chooses, though, to design the show as if much later in American history. The cold, austere beige walls, geometric bookcases and light fittings of Lizzie Clachan’s designs could place it anywhere between the sharp 1960s of Mad Men and today. Why the need to time shift in such a way is unclear, but it certainly doesn’t do anything to enhance the portrayals of back-stabbing and outmanoeuvring within the family dynamic Hellman created. If anything, it just makes everything sound like a cheap knock-off of Dallas.

Thankfully, the performances elevate proceedings. Anne-Marie Duff is sympathetic and calculating at turns, demonstrating a stronger head for business than either of her two brothers. Mark Bonnar, as Benjamin, is similarly well-rounded as the elder sibling; whenever these two actors square off against each other, there is a palpable charge of electricity that enlivens the whole production.

Steffan Rhodri’s role as the third sibling, Oscar, is slightly less well-rounded on the page, but his intransigence and selfishness come across well. His withering putdowns and physical abuse of his fragile wife, Birdie (a delicately powerful turn by Anna Madeley), may have seemed powerful in the 1930s; now, after decades of more effective portrayals of abusive relationships, their relationship seems trite. Its best function is to illustrate the brothers’ hypocrisy towards money. Their current wealth stems mainly from Oscar’s marriage into Birdie’s family, whose long heritage of plantation ownership made them insanely rich – but under Oscar and Benjamin’s stewardship, the whole region is crumbling, and yet still they believe themselves to be the financially superior members of the family.

The continual conversations about percentage ownerships and dodgy financials threaten to obscure some of the smaller, more essential character work the cast is putting in. That threat does ebb slightly in the second act, as Regina’s husband, Horace (John Light), reluctantly returns home after an attempt to convalesce from his severe heart issues and discovers both his brothers-in-law’s attempts to steal his bonds and his wife’s own monetary ambition.

Together with Andrea Davy as the strong-willed maid, Addy, Light helps restore the balance between plot and character. Yet the story never finds itself elevated in the way a great Tennessee Williams production might. However, both Duff and Madeley do their best to show how Hellman’s women might also be thought of as grand, damaged characters.

But one can’t escape the frustrating feeling that neither the director nor designer has really managed to grasp what could make The Little Foxes work. It was written as a period piece that could speak to audiences of the time; this production gets in its own way when trying to do the same.

Continues until 8 February 2025