2010-11 little foxes study guide

8/10/2019 2010-11 Little Foxes Study Guide

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The Little Foxes

Text: Lillian HellmanDirection: Ivo van Hove

September 10 October 31, 2010

Study Guide for

Students and Teachers


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Lillian Hellman took the title of The Little Foxes

from this quotation from the Bible. Although the

characters of Hellmans play are human beings,

they possess many of the traits we often associate

with foxes. For a clearer idea of what that might

mean, we can start with a description of the

animals themselves.

Foxes are in the same family as dogs but with

some noticeable differences:

Slightly smaller than a medium-sized dog

Distinctive muzzle on their long, narrow

snout

Bushy tail

Not domesticated (save the rare exception

of the Russian Silver Fox)

Foxes are usually not pack animals. They live in

small family groupings with a typical litter size

being 4-6 pups.

Foxes feed on live prey, killing them quickly

using a pouncing technique they perfect in their

adolescence. Foxes feed on rodents, birds,

rabbits, and other small game, but theyre not

picky. Foxes will eat fish, frogs, fruits,vegetables, worms, and even garbage and pet

food if they live near humans.

Foxes are burrowing animals. Their dens areusually an underground burrow, a cavity under

boulders, or a crevice in a rocky outcrop.

The director and designer of The Little Foxes

took inspiration for the set design from the

fox-holes these animals live in.

Take us the foxes the little foxes that spoil our vines; for

our vines have tender grapes.

--- Song of Solomon the Hebrew Bible

Prompt: When you attend the

performance, notice what the set feels

like. Is it dark or light? Claustrophobic

or airy? Where are the entrances?

What type of people do you imagine

would live in a home like that? What

does the color make you think of?

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Prompt:

Imagine a human with the qualities of a fox. What would you assume about a

character if you knew him or her to be a fox? What kind of situations would this

human fox get themselves into and also be able to get themselves out of? Write a

monologue from your fox characters perspective.

Imagine what would happen within a family of foxesif every human in the family

had fox-like qualities. What type of conflicts might arise as every member of the

family tried to out-fox the other foxes? Write a short story about their interactions.

As we know, foxes prey on birds. What if there were a human character named

Birdie in your story? What qualities might you assume that person would possess?

How might the family of foxes and the bird interact? How might the bird ever become

the hero of the story?

A definition:

PERSONIFICATION:

1. A person or thing typifying a certain quality

or idea; an embodiment or exemplification.

2. A figure of speech in which inanimate

objects or abstractions are endowed with

human qualities or are represented as

possessing human form.

(www.answers.com)

Over 37 types of foxes exist all over the world,

which explains their prevalence in folklore on

every continent. In cultures all over the world,

foxes are associated with trickery and

cleverness. They are portrayed as being

cunning, resourceful, and deceitful, often with

their primary motive being self-interest.

Sometimes we use qualities we equate with

foxes to describe humans:

fox-like having the qualities of a fox

(tricky, clever)

foxy attractive

out-fox outsmart, out-wit; a fox will

use its cunning intelligence to get what

it wants, not brute force or strength

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Lillian Hellman

The playwright Lillian Hellman was born in

Louisiana in 1905 and grew up in New Orleans and

New York City. The time she spent in the South

with her mothers family influenced the Southern

characters she wrote about in her eventual scripts.

By 1935 Hellman was in Hollywood as a script

reader for MGM. She was encouraged to write by

her long time companion Dashiell Hammett and her

first professional play, The Childrens Hour, was a

Broadway hit. That success opened the door for The

Little Foxesto debut on Broadway in 1939 with the

famous actress Tallulah Bankhead. The Little Foxes

opened to rave reviews, played 410 performancesand was made into a film in 1941 starring Bette

Davis, for which Hellman wrote the screenplay.

Hellman always intended the family drama of the

Hubbards, the central family in The Little Foxes, to

be written as a trilogy, with The Little Foxesbeing

the middle story. She wrote Another Part of the

Forestas a prequel in 1946, but never wrote the last

part of the story.

Hellman wrote politically charged plays revealing

behavior usually masked in polite society and

seldom exposed on stage. Through her work, and

the artistic company she kept, Hellman was a

controversially political figure.

In 1952, at the height of McCarthyism and the fe

of Communism infiltrating the U.S government a

culture, she was one of the many artists brougbefore the House Un-American Activit

Committee. Although she discussed her ow

political sympathies, she refused to speak of anyo

elses involvement with the American Commun

Party. In her address to the Committee she famous

said, I cannot and will not cut my conscience to

this years fashion, even though I long ago came

the conclusion that I was not a political person a

could have no comfortable place in any politic

group. Her defiance caused major Hollywo

studios to blacklist her, effectively ending her fi

and theatre career.

She did, however, continue to write and publish

three memoirs from 1969 to 1976. Lillian Hellm

died of natural causes in 1984.

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Critics of the time complained Hellmans work was

too melodramatic. She did not believe they had the

correct definition of melodrama. Hellman believed

melodrama to be an important tool to show true

human nature, not a style to be dismissed as over-the-

top and exaggerated.

I think the word melodrama in our time has come to be used

in an almost illiterate manner. By definition it is a violent

dramatic piecewhen violence is actually the needed stuff of

the work and comes towards a large enough end it has been

and always will be in the good writers field.

WHAT LILLIAN

SAYS:

If you believe, as the

Greeks did, that man is at

the mercy of the gods, then

you write tragedy. The end

is inevitable from the

beginning. But if you

believe that man can solvehis own problems and is at

nobodys mercy, then you

will probably write

melodrama.

What Others Say About Her:

Miss Hellman has made an adult horror-play. Her little foxes are wolves that eat their own kind.

Brooks Atkinson

The New York Times

February 16 1939

The Little Foxes will not increase your admiration for mankind. It is cold and cynical. But it is a very

exciting picture to watch in a comfortably objective way, especially if you enjoy expert stabbing-in-the

back.

Bosley Crowther

The New York Times

Film Review

This social melodrama, or whatever term one applies to it, continues to captivate audiences no longer

enmeshed in the debate between Marxism and capitalism. The underlying themes of greed and revenge

continue to strike a responsive chord in audiences whenever the play is revived, and its terse, witty dialogueand tense, streamlined plot draw each new audience under its remarkable power.

Carole L. Hamilton

Drama for Students

Past Productions of The Little Foxes

Bette Davis as Regina in the 1941 Film

Kathryn Meisle, Lindsey Wochley,

Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2009.

Photo: Joe Geinert

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Civil War and Reconstruction

Amendments:Between the 16th and 19th centuries, hundreds

of thousands of Africans were shipped to the

United States as slaves. As the U. S. continued to

grow, there was a lot of disagreement between

the North and the South regarding the moral and

economic issues associated with slavery.

Immediately after Abraham Lincoln became

president in 1861, 11 Southern states, where

slavery was still legal, seceded from the Union.The first shots of the Civil War were fired April

12, 1861. In the middle of the Civil War on

January 1, 1963, President Lincoln signed the

Emancipation Proclamation declaring all slaves

in southern states free.

However, this changed very little for those

African-Americans living in the South. It wasnt

until the Civil War finally ended April 9, 1865

that former slaves were given rights through

additions to the U.S. Constitution called the

Reconstruction Amendments. The 13th, 14th,

and 15th Amendments guaranteed citizenship to

all former slaves. Unfortunately, it was not as

easy for the former slaves as these legal

documents made it sound.

Life in the Reconstructed South:Racism and prejudice were ingrained in peoples

way of life and daily interactions. Rules such as

the Jim Crow laws made it permissible to

discriminate against African-Americans in

transportation, education, accommodations, and

courts.

In many ways African-Americans quality of life

did not improve once freed. The former slaves

had rent and taxes to pay and very little moneyto live on. They were still, for the most part,

uneducated and illiterate. Many only had the

skills they learned on the plantations and there

was still cotton to pick.

Most former slaves became share-croppers on

the very land they once worked as slaves. Share-

cropping meant the white landowner would

divide up his land so each black family got a

small portion to live on and work. In exchangefor equipment and seed, the person share-

cropping would give the landowner up to half of

his crop. Other men and women continued

being domestic help in white peoples homes. In

The Little Foxes, Addie & Cal are African-

American servants in the Hubbard household,

and are likely the children of freed slaves, if not

former slaves themselves.

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Reconstruction refers to the time after the Civil War when the United

States of America attempted to re-build economically and socially.

RECONSTRUCTION

A copy of the Emancipation

Proclamation

White Landowner weighing share-

croppers cotton


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The Changing South:

The way of life

in the South was

changing: the

extremely rich

white plantation

owners saw manythreats to their way

of life: their land

ravaged by the war,

their laborers freed from them, and the

economic base of the South began moving away

from agriculture.

Henry W. Grady

created the Atlantic

Constitution, apublication where he

called for a New

South a South built

on industrialization

(no longer solely on

agriculture) with closer ties to businesses based

in the North. Richard H. Edmonds was a leader

of the farm to factory movement. He wanted

to encourage Northern businesses to invest in

the Souths economy by joining withSoutherners to build mills. This way, the cotton

could be processed where it was harvested

instead of being shipped all the way North.Thenumber of mills in the South grew from 160 to

400 from 1880 to 1900 (the year The Little Foxes

is set.) The Little Foxesbegins with the Hubbard

family discussing a business deal with Mr.

Marshall from Chicago about building a mill,

which would take advantage of the cheap laborin the Southnamely freed slaves and poor

whites.

A mill on former farming land

Erwin Mills near Durham, NC

This shift to industry promoted the rise o

merchant class of white men who we

business-oriented and intent on maximizi

money and opportunity in this changi

South. This new, North-infused econom

was eclipsing the pre-War way of life. T

old plantation owners were resistant to the

new business plans. Therefore, this class white men who were willing to mo

forward became the new ruling class of t

South. In The Little Foxes, this old way

life is represented by the character Birdie a

her attachment to Lionnet, her famil

plantation, which she idealizes in h

memory.

Many African-Americans of t

Reconstruction age in the South, numerous generations before them, drea

of escaping to the North. They believed t

North to be a place of freedom a

opportunity. Many of the Southern Africa

Americans did travel North, most notably

the 1920s during the Great Migration. T

search for equal opportunity, both for tho

African-Americans who journeyed Nor

and those who stayed South, continu

throughout the twentieth century and led

the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s a

60s.

Share-croppers in a field in the South at the

turn of the Twentieth Century

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A classic Southern Plantation


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This is a quotation from The Little Foxes.

Addie, an African-American servant in the

household, makes this comment about the

family she serves. She thinks the Hubbards are

like locusts who eat the earth. The locusts sherefers to come from the Bible passage Exodus

10:15:

For they covered the face of the

whole earth, so that the land was

darkened; and they did eat every

herb of the land, and all the fruit of

the trees which the hail had left; and

there remained not any green thing

in the trees, or in the herbs of the

field, through all the land of Egypt.

Details about Locusts:

A swarm can stretch up to 460 square miles

and pack between 40 and 80 million individual

locus. Each insect can eat its weight in plants

each day, so a swarm that size would eat 423

million pounds in one day.

The locusts swarms are typically always inmotion and can cover great distances; once a

swarm flew from West Africa across the

Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean.

They exist all over the world but currently

cause the most devastation in Africa. Locusts

can affect the economic livelihood, not to

mention cause famine and starvation, of nearly

one-tenth of the worlds human population.

They are considered an omen of evil anddestruction.

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There are people who eat the earth and eat all the

people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there

are people who stand around and watch them eat it

.

--- Lillian Hellman The Little Foxes

Prompt:

Why would a playwright ever compare

human characters to an omen of evil and

destruction? What are we doing in our

world right now that could be considered

locust-like, swarming and destroying?

Referring to the second half of Hellmans

quotation, who are the people in our world

right now who are just standing around

watching the devouring of society? Wha

things in our world are currently being

devoured?


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Ivo van Hove

Ivo van Hove is the director of The Little Foxes

here at New York Theatre Workshop. He is aFinnish-born director who has worked

extensively in Europe and the United States in

theater and opera, usually incorporating video

projection and other forms of mixed media. Ivo

has collaborated with New York Theatre

Workshop five times before: More Stately

Mansionsby Eugene ONeill (1997), A Streetcar

Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1999),

Alice in Bed by Susan Sontag (2000), Hedda

Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (2004), and The

Misanthropeby Molire (2008). We are thrilled

to welcome him back for what will be a bold and

daring production of a classic American play.

This family is isolated, frozen in time, like animals running out of

food, chewing each other up. They inhabit a once civilized,

aristocratic world in decay, where people do not know how toescape.They become bitter, frustrated, cannibalistic. They are like

foxes that ruin the fruitful vines because they are too greedy.

Foxes that have to be caught because they destroy the

future. Greed is the problem, the fate hanging over this family.

But most of all, think of the fatal hubris of these characters who

think they can control their lives.

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Ivos work has been referred to as iconoclastic.

An iconoclast is anyone who breaks establisheddogma or conventions. Ivo does not stage

standard or typical productions of famous plays.

Instead he creates new worlds for the play and

its characters in order to resonate with modern

audiences and the contemporary world they live

in.

Ivo is always inspired by two things: 1. the script

itself and 2. the world he lives in. His theater

uses works from the past in order to tell ussomething about the present.

WHAT IVO SAYS about

THE LITTLE FOXES:


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Period Productions Ivo van HovesProductions at NYTW

Prompt: Ivo van Hove usually sets his productions in contemporary times, even if the

script was written long ago and set in a different time. Compare and contrast the

production photos below. Would you ever guess the script is exactly the same based on

the photos? What do you think The Little Foxesmight look like?

John Douglas Thompson and Elizabeth Marvel,

NYTW, 2004. Photo: Joan Marcus.

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Kate Burton and Harris Yulin

Williamstown Theatre Festival,

2000. Photo: Richard Feldman.

Dallas Theater Center, 2008.

Photo: William Deshazer/DMN.

Bill Camp, Jeanine Serralles, NYTW, 2007.

Photo: Joan Marcus.

The Misanthrope

by Molire was written in France in 1666.

Hedda Gabler

by Henrik Ibsen was written in Norway in 1890.


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When it first premiered in 1939, some reviews of The Little Foxes painted the

Hubbard family as villains. Lillian Hellman was distraught to find audiences

viewing these characters as villainous as that was not her intention at all.

Ivo van Hove shares Hellmans view and wants his audience to see each character

as a real, whole human being with influences and motives and to be able to relateto the characters. To that end, Ivo makes this production of The Little Foxes

contemporary and relevant. This production is going to look and sound very

different from most other productions.

The Little Foxes is set in Alabama in 1900. However, Lillian Hellman never

believed that this story of trickery, deceit, and greed was exclusive to these

characters or this time period. As the character Ben Hubbard, the oldest brother,

remarks:

There are hundreds

of Hubbards sitting in rooms like this throughout the

country. All their names arent Hubbard but they are all Hubbards and they will

own this country someday.

The play debuted in 1939, ten years after the nation plunged into the Great

Depression due to overspending and overinvestment. And now we are presenting

this play at a time of deep recession and serious economic troubles throughout the

world due to recklessness and greed. As Hellman points out and van Hove strives todemonstrate, the themes of this play are, unfortunately, as timeless as human

nature.

I never see characters as monstrously as

audiences do.- Hellman

Prompt:

What were the modern elements Ivo added in this production?

Why would Ivo have decided to not place the play in its historic setting, Alabama in 1900?

What did it add to your experience of the play?

Can you imagine what a historically set production of The Little Foxesmight look and sound

like? How do you think your experience of the play would have changed if you saw that

production? Would you have been able to make the links to modern society?

What part of the show you just saw might have made you aware the script is set in 1900

Alabama and not modern day?

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What Others Say about Ivo:Van Hove has made his reputation with revivals that run 180 degrees away from your average, typical

interpretation of classic text.

Variety

You do not feel, as you often do with deconstructionists, that Mr. van Hove is imposing unwarranted

meaning.

Ben Brantley

The New York Times

September 13 1999

You know when the astronauts first went to the moon, and then they returned, and they all went through

a period of deep depression and confusion after being in outer space? I always sort of experience that after

working with Ivo. I come back down to earth and go, Oh they just want me to sit in a chair and talk at the

kitchen table. Oh. The thing that is so thrilling about theater is it truly is a magic space where anything can

happen. Personally I dont want to do theater thats very stylish, when its just stories on stage that are

basically the same as TV or film.

Elizabeth Marvel

The Gothamist

February 26 2010

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Sources and Further Reading:

Hellman, Lillian. Six Plays by Lillian Hellman. New York: Modern Library, 1960.

----------. An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1969.

----------. Pentimento.New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1973.

----------. Scoundrel Time. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1976.

Lillian Hellman, Playwright, Author and Rebel, Dies at 77, New York Times,July 1, 1984.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0620.html

Del Signore, John. Elizabeth Marvel, Actor. The Gothamist, February 26, 2010

http://gothamist.com/2010/02/26/elizabeth_marvel_actor.php

Isherwood, Charles. A Hedda for Self-Absorbed Modern Times. New York Times, September 22, 2004.

http://theater.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/theater/reviews/22hedd.html

Piepenburg, Eric. Hey, Moliere, Hold Onto Your Hat! New York Times,September 23, 2007.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/theater/23piep.html

Schultz, Stanley K. and Tishler, William P. Civil War to the Present: Lecture 2 The New South. 1999.

http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture02.html

National Geographic. Red Fox. Accessed August 24, 2010.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox/
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0620.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0620.htmlhttp://gothamist.com/2010/02/26/elizabeth_marvel_actor.phphttp://gothamist.com/2010/02/26/elizabeth_marvel_actor.phphttp://theater.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/theater/reviews/22hedd.htmlhttp://theater.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/theater/reviews/22hedd.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/theater/23piep.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/theater/23piep.htmlhttp://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture02.htmlhttp://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture02.htmlhttp://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox/http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox/http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/red-fox/http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture02.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/theater/23piep.htmlhttp://theater.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/theater/reviews/22hedd.htmlhttp://gothamist.com/2010/02/26/elizabeth_marvel_actor.phphttp://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0620.html

2010-11 little foxes study guide

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