A family drama that deserves a place alongside the broken, money bound classics like Raison in the Sun and Long Day's Journey Into Night. There's a business deal, a willful mother, a sick father, and the brothers trying to find a way to win at the immoral game they're playing. It's hard to like anyone. ( )

A Southern woman maneuvers against her brothers and husband in order to get her share of money from a major business deal.

Largely terrible people being terrible to each other but with Southern accents. ( )

A drama of family intrigue set in the South in 1900 with a set of characters who were the harbingers of what became the New South. Hellman's eye is keen, seeing deeply into issues of class, social ties, American regionalism, family and race.

I understand from a friend who has seen this various times that there are a lot of laughs in the play, but the production I saw had few people laughing, not because the performance was bad, but because we no longer laugh in the face of alcoholism, spousal abuse and racial stereotypes (even kindly ones). The play certainly didn't need laughs to keep me interested in the outcome of the members of this family. ( )

Hellman's classic play of a southern family and the lengths they will go to for success. This is not the aristocracy; it's the middle class, and the resentment toward the aristocracy is evident in this family. Southern hospitality and geniality are laced with a strong helping of dishonesty, cruelty, and ruthlessness, as each member tries to figure out how to cheat the other members of the family. In the end, do they all wind up cheating each other? The ambiguous ending leaves you some ability to fill that in on your own. ( )

"Well, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it. Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it."

The Hubbards are a familiy with ambition. Their greed is all consuming as they struggle to profit from exploiting what is left of the Old South after the Civil War. Ben Hubbard is head of the family with his younger brother Oscar towing the family line as a sheep would obey a sheperd. Regina is their sister, wife to Horace, mother to Alexandra, with a dangerous hunger for profit. The trio hatch a plan for a cotton factory in town, partnering with a Northerner but they need to raise the capital to start building. By coincidence Horace has a great number of bonds in a safety deposit box and it seems up to the siblings to pressure him to donate to their future financial happiness. Should their plan fail, Oscar's son Leo just happens works at the bank.

I'm not a great reader of plays so this was a good introduction to post-modern theatre. Hellman has a real understanding of dialogue as the tension rises, the sentences get shorten, the diction more terse. Also, the infighting between siblings is believable and enticing to read. The intrigues of their attempted manipulation of each other reminds me of "The Lion in Winter" with bickering royals.

My complaint is how few and weak the protagonists seem. Horace, Birdie, Oscar's wife and Alexandra are all that stand up to the Hubbards. Horace is an invalid, Bertie has personal problems and Alexandra is a child. They seem unequal to the task of holding on through the play. If Hellman had only created one strong character I would have felt the odds more in their favour.

It's a good play and was even turned into a movie with Bette Davis as Regina. If you're a fan of reading about sibling rivalries this is the book for you. ( )