Winston, who believes that stage setting is metaphoric, cleverly frames a turn-of-the-century Southern drawing room with representations of Spanish Moss, defined by the program notes as: "An indigenous, indestructible part of the Southern character; it (moss) blurs, conceals, softens and wraps the hard limbs of hard times in a fringed shawl. It is neither a moss nor a parasite; rather, it is a tropical herb which grows on another plant upon which it depends for mechanical support but not for nutrients."
While the entire definition fits a society obsessed with keeping up appearances in the face of disastrous defeat, the attribute of depending on another entity for mechanical support but not for nutrients aptly describes Regina Giddens, central figure of "The Little Foxes."
Regina has had to depend on her banker husband for financial support but never for any other kind of nourishment. She feeds only on her rage and ambition. Valerie Haugen handles the role with an admirable finesse. She doesn't revert to caricature, nor to making the character unfathomable. Haugen's Regina is completely explicable, even plausible, without exacting even a modicum of sympathy.
Haugen depicts unabashed evil with exquisite nuance, so that the audience sees Regina's dreams and schemes, her contempt and greed, playing themselves out in the rigidity of her posture, facial expressions running the gamut from grimaces to gloats, from frowns of frustration to smirks of triumph.
Equally adept is Bonnie Cobb as Birdie Hubbard. This is not an easy role to play, smacking a bit as it does of Blanche Du Bois ("A Streetcar Named Desire"). But Cobb plays it straight and serious, conveying the victimized Birdie's sweetness and pathos.The parts of the irrepressible and vile Hubbard brothers are skillfully played by Thomas Cochran and Jeff Carlson. Cochran's Oscar barely conceals the brutality of his nature beneath a surface of blustery heartiness. Carlson plays Benjamin with skill and zest. He's Faulkner's Flem Snopes (also a scheming storekeeper of the New South) with a smarmy charm, swiftly turning from placating to menacing, from shameless flatterer to calculated bully.
Douglas Rintell brings to the role of the dying and fine-spirited Horace Giddens the same subtle and consistent performance with which Cochran and Carlson portray the amoral and hypocritical Hubbard brothers. As the battle Horace wages against the cruelty and greed of his wife and her brothers takes on heroic dimensions, Rintell skillfully portrays a man of moral stamina who is in physical pain, and at spiritual peace.
As Alexandra Giddens, Kelly Renoux grows through the acts from a muted young girl in her mother's shadow to her own person, showing signs of ripening into a fortunate mixture of Birdie's softness and Regina's strength. Playing her cousin Leo, Ryan Fleming deftly depicts the Hubbard vices incubating in a reckless young man.The roles of the servants are drawn by Cindy Cochran and Tamara Degler with a thoroughness that reveals a sure directorial hand. Dan Hugo is believable as the successful businessman from Chicago intent upon "bringing the factory to the cotton," as Benjamin Hubbard greedily puts it.
The Roaring Fork Valley theatre world is fortunate to have a director with the vision to draw analogies between disparate time periods. Lon Winston noted how close is the world of the Hubbards to ours of corporate takeovers and "the many family businesses turned mega corporations ruled by greed."
Seeing the connection between the turns of the two centuries motivated Winston to select "The Little Foxes." Then he worked with the cast, focusing their abundant talent to the task of developing distinctive, finely nuanced and easily accessible characters. The result is a play which deeply engages the audience.