Summary
Act 1. The living room of the Giddens' house in a small town in Alabama, spring, 1900. Addie, a 55-year-old black servant, is closing the windows. Then Cal, another black servant, comes in with a tray with 10 glasses and port wine. Addie questions Cal about the port and he tells her that Regina told him to get the bottle for a "mighty honored guest." Addie pours the wine.
As the servants talk, Birdie Hubbard, a woman in her 40s, enters. Hellman writes, "Her movements are usually nervous and timid, but now, as she comes running into the room, she is gay and excited." She asks Cal to get another servant to look in her dresser and bring back a music album. She discusses the fact that her parents used to go to Europe to see operas, alluding to her old family wealth, as Oscar Hubbard comes in. He immediately orders Cal not to send someone to get the record and berates his wife.
"But, Oscar, Mr. Marshall said most specially he wanted to see my album. I told him about the time Mama met Wagner and Mrs. Wagner gave her the signed program and the big picture," Birdie says. Oscar tells her that she is boring their guest, Mr. Marshall, and accuses Birdie of having had too much wine. "Some people like music and like to talk about it," Birdie protests, when Leo, their son, enters from the dining room, "a young man of twenty, with a weak kind of good looks."
Regina Giddens, a "handsome woman of forty," and William Marshall, the guest of honor, come in from the dining room, along with Alexandra Giddens, the 17-year-old daughter of Regina. Then Benjamin Hubbard comes in. Regina discusses with Marshall the fact that she loves Chicago and would rather live there than in the South. Marshall compliments the port and Regina allows her daughter, Alexandra, to have a glass in Marshall's honor.
Marshall tells Regina and the others, "...you Southerners occupy a unique position in America. You live better than the rest of us, you eat better, you drink better. I wonder you find time, or want to find time, to do business." Marshall asks if everyone in the family lives there with Regina, but Regina clarifies that they all have their own homes. Marshall asks if they are in the same business and Ben tells him that he and Oscar are, but Regina is married to a banker.
Regina apologizes for her husband's absence, explaining that he is ill and at Johns Hopkins. Leo tells Marshall that he works at the bank for Horace, Regina's husband. Marshall asks Birdie if she has found the record with the Wagner signature on it, but Birdie, intimidated by her husband, tells Marshall that she has a headache and was unable to get the record. Alexandra asks Birdie if she wants to play a duet with her, and Oscar tells her to do so. They go to the piano and discuss the piece, as Marshall waxes poetic about how the "Southern aristocracy" has managed to stay together.
Ben clarifies that they are not actually aristocrats, that Birdie is the only truly aristocratic member of the family as her family owned a very successful plantation by the time that the Hubbards had arrived in the area. Leo beams and says, "My mother's grandfather was governor of the state before the war."
As Ben gloats about the fact that Birdie's family always had the best things, and says that they had "niggers to lift their fingers," Birdie interrupts to say, "We were good to our people. Everybody knew that. We were better to them than—"
Birdie gets interrupted, before telling Marshall that her father was killed in the war. Ben tells Marshall that Lionnet, the family plantation, was almost ruined. Ben explains to Marshall that their family, the Hubbards, are in merchandise, and Birdie's family looks down on them. "Twenty years ago we took over their land, their cotton, and their daughter," he says.
Oscar notes that Ben likes to say that they work hard to bring some prosperity to the region. "Some people call that patriotism," Ben says, and waxes poetic about the nature of work and money, trying to sweeten a business deal he's made with Marshall, to build a mill there for cotton.
Ben tells Leo to pour everyone some more port, and tells Marshall, "Down here, sir, we have a strange custom. We drink the last drink for a toast. That's to prove that the Southerner is always still on his feet for the last drink." Oscar tells Marshall that Leo and Alexandra will drive him to the depot. Marshall asks Regina to promise to visit him in Chicago and she does.
After he leaves, Regina turns to Birdie and says, "And there, Birdie, goes the man who has opened the door to our future." She tells Birdie she was charming at supper, even though Birdie insists that Ben told her she was boring. Regina muses to Birdie that Marshall doesn't like his wife, and says that she intends to go to Chicago.
Analysis
The first scene of the play introduces us to the tragic figure of Birdie, a member of the Southern aristocracy, and her rather abusive husband, Oscar, who regularly belittles her. Birdie is seemingly a bit of an alcoholic, a woman who reminisces about the glamorous Southern life her parents shared, and longs for an affection that Oscar refuses to give her. Their relationship is monied and refined, but strained and emotionally imbalanced.
The play is as much about the South as it is about anything. Before much of the action of the play has taken place, we have learned something about the economy and hierarchies of the South. The first characters we see in the play are black servants, remnants of the only-recently-dismantled institution of slavery. Birdie talks about her family as Southern aristocracy, Americans who could afford to travel to Europe just to hear an opera. Furthermore, as William Marshall notes, "...you Southerners occupy a unique position in America. You live better than the rest of us, you eat better, you drink better. I wonder you find time, or want to find time, to do business." The South is depicted as a place of luxury and ease, where white people can enjoy an elevated quality of life.
While their quality of life may be quite fine, the Hubbards are not exactly a happy family. They put on a show for William Marshall, playing their parts as members of a tight-knit family, but in isolated moments we see that they are quite abrasive and dismissive towards one another. Not only is Oscar cruel to his wife, he is also cruel to his son, Leo, who earnestly wants to feel part of the family. In this way, we see that the "Southern aristocracy" to which the Hubbards belong is a mirage of civility and closeness. Southern aristocracy is a crumbling facade rather than a stable unit.
Birdie and Regina are very different. While Birdie is a much-maligned daughter of the Southern aristocracy, Regina feels she has something to prove. After Marshall leaves, she tells Birdie, "You know what I've always said when people told me we were rich? I said I think you should either be a nigger or a millionaire. In between, like us, what for?" Regina has a rather aspirational and avaricious view of life, desiring to accumulate a great deal of wealth and buy a placement in society.
Birdie, meanwhile, has no such pretensions or ambitions, as she is the daughter of plantation owners and so has a great deal of wealth. She has nothing to prove, but she has her fair share of disappointments, isolated by her abusive business-savvy husband, who seems to care only for her pedigree. The abusive structure has caused her to misunderstand her own social value, and she shrinks behind her reliance on drinking in order to drown the sorrow of her isolation.
