The Theater: New Musical Play in Manhattan, Nov. 14, 1949

Regina (written & composed by Marc Blitzstein; produced by Cheryl Crawford in association with Clinton Wilder) sets Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes to music. As music, it is more clever than distinguished; as drama, it is clearly a littler Foxes. But on its own terms—and they are wisely very much its own—it is an exhilarating and enjoyable show.

It is not the text of The Little Foxes that Regina has altered: the storyline scarcely varies an inch. It is the tone. With its sharp claws and ruthless clawing, its treacherous wiles and wheelchair theatrics, The Little Foxes might have yielded something inordinately operatic. But though his big scenes are sometimes florid enough, Composer Blitzstein’s version of the Alabama Hubbards is fundamentally comic. Regina much less suggests a social critic excoriating an emerging class of plunderers than a first-rate showman exhibiting a prize assortment of hellions. Blitzstein’s Hubbards cavort the whole time they conspire, and the general effect is of exuberance rather than tension.

There is fair warrant for all this: stripped of symbolism, seen as foxes chiefly engaged in outfoxing one another, the Hubbards take their place in the long comic tradition of cheating cheaters. And the tone is becoming to Composer (The Cradle Will Rock) Blitzstein, who gets strident when shaking his fist but is vivacious when thumbing his nose. As plain razzing—it falls flat when it reaches for satire—Regina teems with brisk musical stage directions, brilliant little jingles, V-for-villainy motifs, high-spirited hocuspocus.

Blitzstein is also a clever musical impersonator: at home in a great variety of styles, he turns out spirited polkas, convincing Negro jazz, grandiose arias, lilting quartets. Moreover, in Regina the music constitutes the actual train ride, not just (as in musicomedy) the stops along the line.

The whole production—including Horace Armistead’s sets and Robert Lewis’ staging—has been done with style. Though an effective Regina in her first serious Broadway role, Jane Pickens, with perhaps the least vocal right, leaves the most determinedly operatic impression. More memorable are Brenda Lewis’ overall performance as the pathetic Birdie and Newcomer Russell Nype’s comic charm as the loathsome Leo.

The Producer. In her 18 years as one of the two regulars among Broadway’s few women producers,* Regina’s Cheryl Crawford has managed to combine hardheaded business instinct and high-minded theatrical taste. The results were more praiseworthy than profitable until she found a knack for offbeat musicals: 1942’s revival of Porgy and Bess, 1943’s One Touch of Venus, 1947’s Brigadoon—her biggest hit, after some of the town’s canniest producers had turned it down.

A tailored, severely handsome woman of 47 who never wastes a word (or a dollar of production costs), Producer Crawford went from her native Akron to Smith College, and then straight to Broadway. She joined the Theatre Guild as a part-time secretary, worked her way up through odd jobs to casting director, quit in 1931 to become a founder and director of the fiery young Group Theatre, which launched Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, William Saroyan, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, John Garfield.

Miss Crawford’s chronic idealism, which has helped to nourish such noncommercial projects as the Experimental Theatre and the Actors’ Studio, startled hard-shelled Broadway during the run of Brigadoon. With big profits in sight, she gave her cast of 62 what no performers expected from a producer: hospitalization insurance, free advanced acting lessons from Director Lee Strasberg, a week’s vacation with pay.

On her own since 1937, except for a year with Eva Le Gallienne and Margaret Webster running the ill-fated American Repertory Theater, Producer Crawford hunts tirelessly for scripts that offer “something different.” Now on her schedule: a melodrama, a musical and a new Paul Green adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, starring John Garfield.

* The other: Theresa Helburn, longtime co-director of the Theatre Guild.