Girls, What Better Way To End A Day Of Social Activism Than With These Bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!

Darlings, you know what a bitch I am, especially if you have been on here long enough, and nobody loves a bitch more than another bitch; even if we do hate each other on sight. So I am proud to say that my emotionally fraught Saturday ended on a high note of bitchery, when Monsieur Davide and I trooped over Eastward to catch the New York Theatre Workshop's production of Lillian Hellman's classic "The Little Foxes."

Girls, I have loved it ever since I first saw the Bette Davis movie!!! I am telling you, if I were teaching my required course Gay Bitch 101, this would be required reading and viewing. But my theatrical history, personally, with this piece, is rather spotty. First of all, darlings, I am only 24, so I was not even born when Tallulah did it!!!!! And I was too young to see Anne Bancroft, and could not afford a full price tkt to Elizabeth Taylor, although the real reason to see that one, it was always said, was Maureen Stapleton;s Birdie. Instead, I came to "The Little Foxes" onstage via the 1997 revival at Lincoln Center;s Beaumont, with a great set (Tony Award nomination, if I recall!), Stockard Channing as a passionless Regina, Frances Conroy as a misdirected Birdie, whose big, tragic scene, gets laughs, when it is supposed to tear at the heart, and Jennifer Dundas as the shortest and squattest Alexandra in theater history. Directed by Jack 0'Brien, who was more comfortable with musicals, this 'Foxes' was anything but foxy. Nevertheless, its curtain closing moment, with Alexandra advancing before the centerpiece floor length mirror, and growing before our eyes, as the lights dimmed and curtain fell, signalling that, were the story followed, she would be the next force, like her mother, to be reckoned with, made the whole abysmal evening almost worth it. But how frustrating; if there could have been THIS great moment, why could the entire thing not be great, because I am telling you, Lillian Hellman's script is so solid it is almost impossible to ruin. UNLESS you have a wrong director, like Jack 0'Brien. Who am I blaming the failure of THIS production on, girls?????? JACK O'BRIEN!!!!!!!!! Hell, it would have been better if it had been directed by MARARET 0'Brien!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, sweeties, this past summer Monsieur Davide and I saw something that almost slipped by me--the St. Clement's Theatre revival of Lillian Hellman's "Another Part Of The Forest." Girls, you better believe I know MY Lillian Hellman; so I have aways known that this play was the prequel to 'Foxes', and that, in her Broadway debut, Patricia Neal won a Tony Award for playing the young Regina!!!!!!!!!! I even knew of the movie, where Ann Blyth, aka Veda Pierce, played young Regina, so how brilliant, casting wise is that???? But never has the opportunity to see the film been presented to me, and who ever expected the stage play to be revived, as its only interest is its connection to the better known 'Foxes?'

So when this 'Forest' revival got a RAVE from that big old bottom, Mr. Benjamin Brantley, whose coming out party, I am certain, included a cat o'nine tails, I KNEW I had to see it. According to what I read, this production was so dripping in vitriol, possessing all the juices that the Beaumont 'Foxes' lacked, that I knew I had to flock to it--and so did every other bitch queen in Manhattan. For the duration of its all too short run, "Another Part Of The Forest" was not only a sell out sensation, it had its run extended!!!!!!!! And I can tell you it was all Brantley said, and more!!!!!

One theatrical fact that cannot be overemphasized, girls, is THIS--actors LOVE to play bitches, and audiences love to WATCH actors playing bitches!!!!!!!! I mean, what do you think thi blog is all about, darlings!!!!!!!!!! So during this period, when I heard that the New York Theater Workshop was going to open its Fall season with "The Little Foxes", I got SO excited, lambs!!!!! Not only more bitchery, but a chance to see this family saga in its time-chronological order. How fascinating to a theater, not to mention virtue, purist, like myself!!!!!!!!! My face fell, initially, when I discovered this version was to be directed by Ivor Howe, who is all about putting his stamp on the classics. This was the man who staged "A Streetcar Named Desire" on a bare stage, with just a batthub center, climaxing with Stanley raping Blanche, with them in the tub, coming off like Michael Douglass fending off Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction." So I was worried--I was not about to suffer through ANOTHER bad "Little Foxes," because my bitch just would not be able to take it!!!!!!!

So I held my breath, and waited to decide. The reports were unsettling; coworkers of mine hated it, mainstream critics were more begrudging than enthused, and the downtown set, who probably wouldn't know Lillian Hellman from Anna Deavere Smith, went wild. I did not know what to do--until I saw on NYTW's workshop, a video excerpt of the production. The vitriol evident in what I saw, and the intriguing concept of reducing a three act play to ne, made me curious as Hell to see this "Little Foxes." Well, I am happy to report, curiousity did not kill this cat, or Raving Queen, this time; instead I was satisfied!!!!!!

"The Little Foxes" staging has been conceptualized asa gigantic, black, box-within-a-box puzzle, with its inhabitants trapped inside, and literally crawling, scratching, banging and screaming to be let out. The primal animalism if Hove's actors are refreshing after 0'Brien's staid ninnies. How I shall always cherish here Tina Benko's Birdie, a vision in red, shoes flung off at times as though doing an interpretive dance, with the moves to match (same for Elizabeth Marvel's Regina), who gets out of Birdie a sadness, anger, and rage that is most devastating she when she turns upstage and pounds the wall with such fury we get not only her rage, but a visualization of the literally ongoing physical spousal pummeling that has marked her twenty years of marriage. Then there is Christopher Evan Welch, the most mobile and hottest looking Horace I have ever seen, but with such an impassioned line delivery that for the first time Horace becomes a character and not a plot device. Not to mention the candid display of sexuality between he and Regina at one point, and in fact the almost sexually langorous and incestuous moves this clan puts on one another all the time. Thomas Jay Ryan's passive agressive--make that vicious--Oscar clarifies not only why Biride is such a wreck, but why Leo is such a jerk; he is as cowed by his father and clan as his mother, but uses his vain animalism to retaliate, and his stupidity to hide from others his true evil, too--an evil that comes out with those bonds. Crisitn Miloti's Alexandra is just fabulous, a bruised, Goth princess with some spine of her own, whose farewell to us on the video screen caused some of us to cheer.

Did I forget to tell you, girls???? While the famous staircase is placed center, and things happen there which are suppposed to, this "Little Foxes" is staged on a bare set, with a video screen masquearading as a portrait from which, time to timem we see other saspects of the story taking place. It is a fascinating and engaging device--with Alexandra's farewell to the accompaniment of "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World" my favorite device!!!! Also, darlings, no Southern accents here, though at times in Benko, Ryan, and Marton Csokas as Ben, a wisp of something lyrical comes through now and then. Not so with Elizabeth Marvel, whose crude, foul mouthed, foul moving and devouring Regina is played like Colleen Dewhurst if she had had a psychotic break. Which is what this entire family seems to be having in this boxed asylum they are trapped in. And how about that red tie on Ben, hmmmmmm? That, and his pointed line, "I know I shall never marry" confirms to me my suspicions of Ben having always been gay; no wonder he and Regina fight and get along best, no wonder his delivery is so silky yet vitriolic. Sweeties, he is one of us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We know where Oscar and Leo went whoring; wonder where Ben got his action????? On business trips????? Hmmmmmmmm???????????

The point, girls, is that in spite of what may have alarmed you from what you have just read, this "Little Foxes" works. The set pieces, the big scenes that need to happen do, and there is so much--almost an overabundance of--vitriol that all the nastiness that could have been extracted from this play has been, and then some!!!!!
No wonder every bitch in town is flocking down to it. If you don;'t get there soon, darlings--its run ends, oddly enough, on Halloween--you will miss the biggest BITCHFEST of the season!!!!!!!! And you know we love our bitchfesrts, girls!!!!!!!!!

So get your goddamn asses downtown, you bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!