Painfully funny

Spring Green — As the first actor to play Regina Giddens, Tallulah Bankhead knew what she was talking about when she described this towering force from Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” as “a rapacious bitch, cruel and callous.”

But Regina wasn’t always that way, as Buy Tiffany Hellman made clear in “Another Part of the Forest,” a prequel to “Foxes.” With William Brown directing, American Players Theatre is turning back the clock in a pitch-perfect production of “Forest” on its Up-the-Hill Theatre stage.

“Forest” is set in the same Deep South familiar from “Foxes,” but it is 1880 rather than 1900.

Regina is just 20 and still an unmarried Hubbard; Birdie has not yet married and become one. Most important, the patriarch of the gucci bags Hubbard clan - Marcus - still rules the roost, feared and resented by his wife, Lavinia, as well as his sons: the conniving Ben and the loutish Oscar.

Hellman always regretted that the critics took seriously a play she had intended as “funny or outrageous.”

Brown splits the difference, recognizing that the Hubbards’ outsized greed can be both farcical and, like all good farce, painfully cruel.

As Marcus, Jonathan Smoots sets the tone, True Religion Markt with a combination of droll wit, zest for gamesmanship, downright nastiness and preening vanity that not only alienates his family but hastens his eventual downfall. Smoots’ villains often have flair and depth, and his Marcus is no exception.

Sarah Day’s Lavinia ensures we don’t feel too sorry for her husband. A put-upon woman driven over the edge, she allows the audience some cheap laughs before sucker-punching us with genuinely poignant moments at the close of each of the first two acts.

Tiffany Scott gives us a Regina who is recognizably her father’s double and spiritual heir. Like Marcus, Regina’s ingrained selfishness is crossed with a spirited sense of fun. Aided by a winning smile and Rachel Anne Healy’s sumptuous costumes, Scott’s Regina wraps Marcus around her finger, enjoying the game as much as the anticipated Cheap Tiffany   outcome.

Regina’s charms are lost on big brother Ben, who only sees the outcome and lets nothing stand in his way.

Marcus Truschinski’s restrained performance gets Ben exactly right, reflecting the cold and ruthless temperament beneath his easy Southern drawl, while giving us a taste of who his little sister will become once she grows up.