Dundalk Presents EAT OR BE EATEN

     A quick once-around the internet, and we learn that foxes are mostly solitary creatures, opportunistic, known to raid henhouses and steal the occasional chicken. They have incredible hearing, so they don't miss much, and are reputed to be sly and clever.

These characteristics also illustrate the Hubbard family who form the core of Lillian Hellman's famed play, "The Little Foxes," now at the Dundalk Community Theatre.

The Hubbards are "eaters of the earth," as Addie (Melissa Broy Fortson), their maid, describes them, well-to-do locusts of the deep South in the spring of 1900.

The plot revolves around the Hubbards plans to build a cotton mill. The Hubbards, Regina (Joan Crooks), Benjamin (B. Thomas Rinaldi), Oscar (Frank Vince) and his son, Leo (Alan M. Berlett), make a deal with a Chicago financier, William Marshall (Craig A. Peddicord) to secure funding. They have all the cash they need...except for $75,000 which constitutes Regina's share, to come from her ill husband, Horace (Leonard Gilbert).

Horace, ironically, suffers from a "bad heart," as he is one of the play's honorable figures; he has no intention of helping the Hubbards fulfill their self-perceived manifest destiny to own the world at the expense of the poor.

Being Hubbards who "are everywhere, though perhaps not in name" as Benjamin notes, they are resourceful and when Leo discovers over $80,000 in bonds in Horace's safe deposit box, a plan begins to form. In between Oscar plans to marry his son to Regina's daughter, Alexandra (Morgan Wright), in a power play to gain a future inheritance.

Rinalidi and Vince render stellar performances as grasping, covetous, robber barons who represent greed and selfishness in many forms. They never miss the opportunity to flaunt their power, flinging angry orders at servants Addie and Cal (William Walker), patronizing the women, shooting animals for sport, and lauding their victory over antebellum Southern aristocracy as represented by Birdie (Catherine Stalcup Herlinger), Oscar's alcoholic wife and occasional punching bag. As wonderfully wicked as they are, Crooks outshines them all as a woman determined to rise above the constraints society places on her sex to escape her own special brand of loneliness--Regina's separation anxiety from all the riches she so devoutly believes are her birthright.

In an interview, the late veteran character actor John Carradine was once asked why he enjoyed playing villains so much. To paraphrase Carradine, "because villains are always active," the representatives of good, always "reactive." We see this in Hellman's play as the bad guys are certainly more interesting than the good guys-Hellman gives her rapacious Hubbards the best lines. Goodness is made manifest in those who appear to have the least power-a heartsick invalid, a 17-year-old girl, a fallen belle with a drinking problem, and an African-American woman living a bare scintilla above slavery.

But Hellman arms these seemingly impotent characters with will, intelligence and spirit and the actors make the most of their parts, particularly Gilbert as the wheelchair-bound Horace who even sitting down stands taller than any of the Hubbards, particularly when he goes wheel-to-toe with Regina, getting the best of a woman who seems like King Lear's Regan and Goneril rolled into one.

Director Joey Hellman, Stage Manager Sarah Middleton, and Scenic/Lighting/Sound Desiger Marc W. Smith, deserve much credit for bringing the Hubbard's manorial home to the stage, complete with sunken sitting room, gas-powered chandelier, portrait painting, staircase, and other nice touches. Costume Coordinator James J. Fasching does a masterful job in adorning the Hubbards in styles of the era, from Horace's velvet-and-brocade robe to Regina's elegant hats.

The actors occasionally "stutter step" in their delivery, trodding on each other's lines, but somehow these errors seem appropriate, adding to the veracity of the conversation and indicative of the characters' natures-people who insist that they be heard, above all else. Hellman has, of course, penned a masterpiece and the cast and crew of the Dundalk Community Theater provide the audience with a respectful homage.

THE LITTLE FOXES continues its run at the Dundalk Community Theater on the Dundalk campus of the Community College of Baltimore County, 7200 Sollers Point Road, March 6th and 7th at 8 p.m. and March 8th at 3 p.m. Tickets are $22 for adults, $19 for seniors, and $14 for students, children 12 and under and DCT actors. Call the box office at 443-840-2787 or visit www.ccbcmd.edu.