Repertory To Present Hellman Play

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30154, 11 June 1963, Page 20

Repertory To Present Hellman Play

Lillian Hellman, whose play, ‘■'Hie Little Foxes,” will be presented by the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society in the Repertory Theatre from June 22 to June 29, like the members of the Group Theatre in America of the 1980's, drew her themes from political and social issues. A journalist in New York before she took to writing plays, her ■'The Little Foxes” (1938) has a 1900 setting in the Deep South where two brothers plan to make money from the establishment of a

cotton mill in an area where all cotton has previously been sent north for manufacturing. The two brothers are from a farnliy of small-town businessmen. One. Oscar, has married into Southern American aristocracy and, deeply conscious that he cannot belong to the same social sphere as his wife, is bitterly antagonistic towards her. This conflict forms one of the minor themes of the play. The brothers want their sister, Regina, to share in the cotton mill scheme, partly to make it a family venture, but also because they need the money. Buit Regina would have to get the money from her husband, a banker, whose recent time in hospital has given him the opportunity to ponder on the conditions of the negroes in the south and. seeing that the scheme is based on exploiting negroes, he refuses. Oscar’s son. however, obtains access to some negotiable bonds belonging to the banker, and the scheme goes ahead. When the banker discovers this deception he threatens to cut his wife out of his will. Ait the end of the play, Regina, although rich, is about to see her family break up as a consequence of her own materialistic self-seeking. The play will be produced by John Kim. Maurice Askew. a lecturer at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, designed the sets, which were painted by a, team under Mrs Valerie" Gould.