Another Part of the Forest
Opens WVU’s fall theatre season
By James D. Held
The fall, 2007 theatre season at West Virginia University opens with Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest, a drama she wrote seven years after her masterpiece, The Little Foxes. Both plays profile the entirely evil Hubbard clan. When Forest opened on Broadway in November, 1946, Ms. Hellman noted: “I believed that I could now make clear that I had meant the first play as a kind of satire. What I had thought was bite they thought sad, touching, or plotty and melodramatic.” Following the success of The Little Foxes on stage and in the film starring Bette Davis, many people wanted to know where these characters had come from, what made them so unpleasant.
Lillian Hellman, like her contemporaries William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, was a writer steeped in the culture and traditions of the Deep South. She was fascinated by the failure of the Old South in its apocalypse, the Civil War, and in the New South, embodied in characters like Williams’ Stanley Kowalski or Maggie the Cat. In the Hubbards, who made their fortune through the 1860s and 70s from war profiteering, Hellman sketches a group of people who seem to live only for greed and power. They care nothing at all for the old aristocracy, symbolized by the impoverished Bagtry family, or for loving relationships. Marriages are arranged to suit the financial advantage of the family. We find out why Regina, the villain of The Little Foxes, comes to marry Horace Giddens instead of pursuing the man she really loves, John Bagtry, who would never find her suitable.
Another Part of the Forest is, yes, a serious soap opera, but it provides a cast of fascinating characters with some nasty motivations and poignant moments of illumination and truth. The only real humanity on view in the play is from the black servants, Coralee and Jacob. They provide a moving counterpoint to the ‘axis of evil’ that is the Hubbard house. One of the most revealing lines of dialogue from The Little Foxes describes the Hubbards: “There are people who eat earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. And other people who stand around and watch them eat.”
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) was one of the most powerful female voices in the American theatre. Born in New Orleans, she studied at NYU, Columbia and Tufts, but never completed a degree. She spent time in Hollywood, became great friends with legendary director William Wyler, was said to be the inspiration for Nora Charles in the series of mysteries written by her long-time companion Dashielle Hammett, and participated in a minor way in the Spanish civil war. A famous left-wing advocate, she refused to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of Congress in 1952. For her troubles she was blacklisted by Hollywood until 1960. As her career wound down, she wrote three volumes of memoirs, some of which was filmed as the popular film “Julia.” Her great plays include The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest, the book for Candide, and Toys in the Attic.
An experienced cast of graduate and undergraduate actors in the Division of Theatre & Dance acting program is directed by Jerry McGonigle. The play will be performed in the Gladys G. Davis Theatre on October 3 (preview), 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 at 7:30 PM and on October 7 and 14 at 2:00 PM.
Tickets may be purchased at the two University box offices, located in the Mountainlair and at the Creative Arts Center or by phone at 304-293-SHOW (7469) or at TicketMaster outlets. Visa and MasterCard orders are accepted. Information may be obtained by calling Carol Kurcaba at the Division of Theatre and Dance office, 304-293-4841x3120.