Stage Review - Little Foxes (Intiman Theatre & The Feast)
Stage Review - Little Foxes
Presented By: Intiman Theatre & The Feast - Seattle, WA
Show Run: October 15 - November 02, 2025
Date Reviewed: Friday, October 24, 2025
Run Time: 2 Hours, 40 Minutes (inclusive of a 20-minute intermissions)
Reviewed By: Anna Tatelman
It’s hard to resist the appeal of the American socio-political family drama. These plays often strip back the facades composing both the idyllic image of the family and wider undercurrents in our society. The current production of Little Foxes, co-produced by Intiman Theatre and The Feast, capitalizes on this allure by showing us the cruelty, self-absorption, and ruthless ambitions of a well-to-do and seemingly genteel Southern family. It’s a rendition that doesn’t run from the uglier sides of human nature, but instead carefully peels away the extravagances of wealth, propriety, and privilege until we’re left only with all the ways in which people can – intentionally and unintentionally – hurt one another.
First produced nearly nine decades ago, Little Foxes is a play written by Lillian Hellman. It focuses on a large, wealthy Southern family as they struggle, both individually and collectively, to retain and grow their money and land holdings. The family is in talks with a wealthy Northerner to make a business deal, but to finance the deal, all three adult siblings (Regina, Benjamin, and Oscar) need to buy in. Since Regina is a married woman in the ‘30s, she doesn’t have control directly over her assets, so needs her husband to agree to the deal, too. When Benjamin and Oscar try to discreetly leave her out of the deal so as to keep all the money within control of the patriarchal lineage, it sets off scheme after scheme as they all vie for ultimate control. Underpinning all of this cruelty served with polite smiles is the subtext of where both their existing and new wealth springs from: the continued subjugation of Southern Blacks in the Jim Crow era, who work tirelessly and struggle just to afford food for the table, while meanwhile the white plantation owners kill so many animals for sport that they don’t know what to do with their enjoyable excess.
What this co-production by The Feast and Intiman excels at is not sugar-coating Little Foxes. Director Ryan Guzzo Purcell’s exposes both the vicious machinations of the siblings as they try to outwit one another in their bid to control the family’s finances and dynasty, as well as the quiet tragedies of those who are treated as puzzle pieces rather than people in these schemes: Addie, the Black servant, who genuinely loves the plantation daughter she’s helped raise, but is understandably frustrated too at not having options to make other financial choices or enjoy the fruits of her efforts; Alexandra, the young woman who her uncle Benjamin tries to marry off to his son, despite the fact that her cousin is highly irresponsible with money and treats women poorly; Birdie, the woman Benjamin married simply to acquire her land and who buries her pain in her alcohol abuse, butnonetheless tries to protect Alexandra from suffering the same fate as she in ending up in a loveless and abusive marriage.
The production elements unite beautifully to provide the audience with a sense that this plantation is both sprawling and claustrophobic. Julia Hayes Welch’s scenic design positions the stage in the center of the room, with audience members surrounding the cast on all four sides, inviting us right into the sitting room brimming with the gentility and cruelty of this family. The music ranges from beautiful piano melodies played on stage by several of the characters to haunting and discordant strings, often providing a startling contrast to either the surface pleasantries or the more blatant cruelties happening onstage (sound design by Erin Bednarz). And Guzzo Purcell places the actors in ways that highlight their isolation from one another even while they’re all stuck together by both property and lineage, such as an incredibly well-timed sequence in which we hear Regina and her husband’s shouts reverberate from off-stage throughout the space, while the rest of the wealthy men onstage plot to steal their finances.
Where the production felt less cohesive for me was with the choice to add some metatheatrical moments. Both during the curtain speech and scene transitions, one or more performers would speak to the audience directly as themselves to provide context for the show, introduce us to stage hands as they assisted with costume changes, and make repeated comments such as “these old plays” and “anyone having any feelings yet?” While I enjoy productions taking risks, I struggled to understand how these metatextual moments contributed to the rest of the show. They seemed stuck in there just to pre-emptively defend against potential criticism about the show’s racism and misogyny. The show itself was already well-executed enough to make it clear that the underpinning bigotry was meant to illuminate, both historically and now, how prejudice affects us, rather than to promote prejudiced behavior. Having the production essentially apologize for its own existence was not necessary.
Nonetheless, this is a solid production worthy of attention, made all the better by the incredible eight-person ensemble. Alexandra Tavares leads as Regina, the sister who goes to increasingly desperate lengths to keep and grow her wealth. Tavares offers a Regina who often plays coy and stupid on purpose to get what she wants, and she does it so well – even in the depths of cruelty – that it’s hard not to root for how well she maneuvers herself as a woman in a world built by men. It makes the moments when her polite façade crumbles and there’s only her biting anger, poised purposefully to hurt, all the more chilling. Nabilah Ahmed plays her daughter Alexandra and brilliantly captures the young woman’s arc from a sweet, naïve adolescent to someone far wiser to and more critical of the tunnel-visioned cruelty of those surrounding her. Bradley Wrenn plays the pretty unlikeable Benjamin, but I always appreciate a performer who doesn’t shy away from their character’s ugliness and deeply understands the character’s motives, however selfish, manipulative, or underpinned by bigotry. Ally Poole, who plays Addie, also does an admirable job, despite relatively little stage time, giving us a rich portrayal of a woman who resents her position as a Black servant with very low wages, but still loves Alexandra; the scene where she cuts down Benjamin with a show of over-the-top adulation is brilliant.
This rendition of Little Foxes offers us an intimate look at the various guises that prejudice, cruelty, and love can take – and what happens when all those facades get ripped away. Intiman Theatre and The Feast immerse us in a world that demonstrates how expansive privilege can be while revealing how that same privilege can produce fear and claustrophobia, offering its beneficiaries few escapes despite the abundance of luxuries. Replete with a talented ensemble and a wonderful set design, this is a reimagining of an old play worth revisiting now.
Little Foxes, co-presented by Intiman and The Feast, runs on stage at Intiman Theatre through November 2. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.intiman.org/.
Photo credit: Joe Moore
