The Little Foxes continues Tues.-Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 4 and 8 pm; Sun., 2 and 7 pm; through June 28. Tickets: $32-$67. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena; 626.356.7529 or Pasadenaplayhouse.org.
When Lillian Hellman’s play about family politics and corporate greed premiered on Broadway in 1939 at the National Theatre it starred Tallulah Bankhead as Regina Giddens. Taking place in 1900 in Demopolis, Alabama, the director of the Pasadena Playhouse production, Damaso Rodriguez, says, “This play couldn’t be timelier, like it was written last week. I’m intrigued by the sense of menace in Hellman’s characters and how they (and all of us) are genetically coded to grasp for all they can. Which makes the Hubbard family’s backstabbing behavior more troubling and timely; it’s not a matter of ‘Good vs. Evil’ but ‘Survival of the Fittest,’ this is who we are.”
Headlining this production, which opened on May 29, are Kelly McGillis (Top Gun) as Regina and Julia Duffy (CBS-TV’s Newhart) as Birdie Hubbard. Also in the cast are Yvette Cason, Cleavant Derricks, Shawn Lee, Geoff Pierson, Tom Schmid, Marc Singer, Rachel Sondag and Steve Vinovich.
LA Stage caught up with the foxy leading ladies after a recent performance.
LA STAGE: Now that The Little Foxes has been running awhile, how has your performance changed?
KELLY McGILLIS: I don’t think my performance per se has changed from what Dámaso (Rodriguez), myself and the other cast members agreed upon in rehearsal, but I do think it has become more nuanced with deeper understanding and meaning of the character.
Julia Duffy
JULIA DUFFY: The performance does change, or grow, or evolve or however you want to characterize it, as soon as the audience becomes part of the experience in ways that do not happen in the rehearsal room. For me I tend to become aware of how I fit into the play as a whole, what my role really is in the overall picture. This becomes clearer to me with each performance, and I think I tend to emphasize certain things and not others as I realize more clearly what I mean to the story. I hope I only serve the play better as I get a feel for what the audience expects, and needs from Birdie as they follow the story. More specifically I think I’ve given Birdie more of the alcoholic’s unsettled demeanor and mood in the earlier scenes and hopefully glimpses into the woman Birdie could have been in the final scene, before she once again gets drunk.
LAS: Since it was written by Lillian Hellman in 1939 and takes place in 1900, what is the relevance of the play to today’s world?
JD: Like any great material the play is very relevant today because she has captured human behavior, which is truthful in any era. What greed, loss and deferred dreams do to people, the different ways they react to life’s disappointments based on their character [or lack of it.] It is exquisitely relevant in 2009, as we are all feeling the effects of an undermined national economy that resulted from grasping at short term gain, to the detriment of the well being of society. When I am able to just be an observer I find I actually feel for the Hubbards, and especially Regina, who want so badly to achieve their dreams but are doomed by their lack of prudence which of course comes from having been denied what they longed for for many years. When someone blows an opportunity that won’t come again you can’t help but identify with them.
KM: When is power and control not relevant?
Kelly McGillis
LAS: What do you like about stage performing as opposed to film and television?
KM: I like the interaction between the audience and myself and that the play is different every performance, because the crowd is different, and they become a character in the play each time we perform it.
JD: One of the main pleasures of doing stage is when you can work on material such as this, which has stood the test of time. It already works in front of an audience, that’s a given–if done well–and that’s something you don’t know when working on a film or television script. And the collaboration that happens during the rehearsal period and then a long run is just priceless.
LAS: What other roles would you like to play on stage?
KM: Many.
JD: There are so many roles that I’d love to play, and so many that are worthwhile for an actress my age, which one can’t say about TV or film. I’m fascinated by the character in Arthur Kopit’s Oh Dad Poor Dad, [Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad]. I love absurdist theatre. I also love Happy Days by Beckett. These are incredible challenges and I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to do them but I can’t help but think about them. And quite frankly I’d be happy to play Birdie for a while longer; it takes a while to get such a role just right.
LAS: How do the beautiful gowns you wear influence your characterization?
JD: I always felt my first act dress was from my younger days, and I haven’t had a new gown in a long time, or reason to wear one, so I feel a gown makes Birdie feel quite sentimental and is a symbol of her bygone youth.
KM: Obviously, I have to work within the constraints of the period and the style, and that influences everything in my characterization.
LAS: What type of research, if any, did you do to prepare for your role?
KM: I read some books and looked at a lot of photographs from that period.
JD: This sounds a bit odd maybe but I mostly read about other productions of the play. I wanted to know how people reacted, what they felt, where the production could fail if not done well. I like to have a grasp of what’s most important to the audience; it’s so easy to lose perspective once rehearsal begins. We were given a large book of detailed information on the era and references in the play to help us and I read quite a bit of it. Because I read a lot of history I already knew about the post Civil War years and 1900 particularly that informed my take on the character’s environment.
LAS: What do you particularly like about your co-star in the scenes you play together?
JD: In my one scene alone with Kelly I love how very female she plays it, a woman comfortable with her womanliness, which I’m sure is impressive and somewhat intimidating to Birdie, whose self esteem has been so damaged by her circumstances. Regina’s strength and confident, bold manner must seem quite liberated to Birdie at that moment, and exciting.
KM: I just think Julia’s fantastic.
LAS: Who are the women you most particularly admire?
KM: My mother, for putting up with me for all these years.
JD: Again because I’m kind of a history nut I find myself fascinated by women like Abigail Adams who made their lives mean something to the larger world despite having no path to any way of being heard as a separate person. And I think of Katharine Hepburn, and well, Lillian Hellman, who simply did what they felt was their destiny, with a clear idea of what their worth was, and made it possible for millions who came after to follow their destinies.
Feature Image of Kelly McGillis and Julia Duffy by Craig Schwartz.
