This production treats The Little Foxes with respect, reverence even. That is often its impediment. This story of avarice in the American South at the turn of the century is sharply written, both as a piece of dramatic literature and as a morality tale of sorts. The current Broadway revival neither produces the crackling delight of which the Hubbards are capable, nor does it squarely land its more profound message about the wicked people who eat the earth.
At yesterday's matinee, Cynthia Nixon played Regina and Laura Linney played Birdie. This came as a surprise to me, since when I bought my tickets a few days ago, the order on the website was reversed. I have no idea why, although Linney was out of Friday's performance due to illness, which might have affected things. (She seemed perfectly fine today). Nixon is a warm and sympathetic figure, and not a natural Regina in my book. She overcomes this by amping up the character's cold calculation, but it falls short of being an entirely successful performance. Nixon's style is quite contemporary, and some of Regina's juiciest lines (such as the concluding lines of Act Two) sound wan in her thin, high voice. She hits her high points in Act One, when Regina is at her most outwardly seductive, but her interpretation fades the more she is tasked with the heavy lifting of Acts Two and Three.
Linney's Birdie came across as too cartoonish in Acts One and Two, although she nailed the heartbreaking scene in Act Three. She perfectly disarmed the audience with wry humor at the beginning of the scene, which led to the devastating revelation of her unrealized life. When she said she hadn't experienced a single day of happiness in 22 years, I believed her. Still, I wonder if the production would be more successful overall if Linney solely played Regina and Nixon solely played Birdie.
The men were largely underwhelming. Richard Thomas barked his lines with little feeling for the text. I didn't believe that he cared so much for the downtrodden people of the town that he would strive to protect them from his devious wife. Michael McKean's Ben was standard issue villain; if he had a longer mustache, he would have twirled it. Darren Goldstein's Oscar and Michael Benz's Leo made almost no impression. Caroline Stefanie Clay's Addie was memorable. I felt that Francesca Carpanini could have done more with Alexandra, but it's a respectable performance.
I'm of the mind that The Little Foxes is one of the strongest plays of its era, and I'm glad to see its renewed prominence. That said, I've seen it done much better. The recent Arena Stage production that ran last fall in D.C. was head and shoulders above what MTC is currently presenting on 47th Street.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
