The cast of The Little Foxes at the Young Vic. Photography by Johan Persson.Regina Giddens (Anne-Marie Duff) has wanted it all - especially a glamorous lifestyle in Chicago - for as long as she can remember. Yet she continues to feel the powerlessness of her sex as money and business matters remain the preserve of her two unscrupulous brothers Ben and Oscar Hubbard (Mark Bonnar and Stefan Rhodri) and her sick husband Horace (John Light).
Opportunity to transform the extended family’s moderate success into millions, comes in the form of a proposed business venture, the construction of a cotton mill to process their land’s annual harvest collected by generations of indentured plantation workers. But Horace has been away from the family home for months and hasn’t committed his third of the required investment funds. Regina hatches a plan to send their daughter Alexandra (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) to bring him home, despite his chronic weakness from a heart condition. Once returned, their marital incompatibility and his reticence to conduct business with Regina’s greedy and dishonourable siblings (one a smarmy bully, the other a belittling wife-beater) causes a fracture in the household, leading to the most spine-chilling moment of the play as Horace, succumbing to his condition, falls from his wheelchair and attempts to pull himself upstairs in a desperate search for his pills. Meanwhile, Regina remains centre-stage, passive and unmoving, knowing her detachment and refusal to assist will likely hasten her husband’s demise.
Originally set at the turn of the 20th century, the script contains plenty of references to horse-drawn buggies and the like, and yet Lizzie Clachan’s design offers no such clarity. The decor and furniture, even Horace’s wheelchair, appear from a much later era, with costumes seemingly of an altogether indeterminate period. These jarring reservations aside, there is something distinctly pleasurable about witnessing a play of crisply-honed characters performed by such an excellent cast, each of whom has a moment to flash their cowardice, bear their teeth or squirm obsequiously.
Perhaps the most tragic figure in the piece is Birdie (Anna Madeley) the once naïve young woman who married the man she believed loved her for herself and not her family’s landholding. But at the top of the second half, we realise that she has long since accepted Oscar’s real intentions. Her resigned outpouring due to a surfeit of elderberry wine must surely mirror the suppressed frustration of women across the globe, whose menfolk represent their interests as they see fit, with little or no consultation. It’s a bitter pill which she is determined her niece will not have to swallow and her earnest entreaties to warn Alexandra, are pitiful and heartrending.
As greed spawns criminal acts — notably the unauthorised opening of a safety deposit box by Oscar’s son Leo (Stanley Morgan) — threats, demands and ultimatums escalate, unravelling any lingering semblance of familial harmony. Only the trusty black servants Addie (Andrea Davy) and her son Cal (Freddie MacBruce) offer any sense of human generosity, goodwill or kindness.
Hardly the cheeriest of festive fayre then, but more than 80 years since the play was written, Lyndsey Turner’s production is a timely reminder that avarice when driven by a blind adherence to Capitalist ideals is a dangerous and often ugly beast.
The Little Foxes runs at the Young Vic until 8 February 2025.
