CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF - Tennessee Williams

There's a lot of dramatic fodder to be found in sitting a dysfunctional family together and letting the conversations, the narrative and the results play out.

It's shown up in some of the plays I've already read from Ibsen, Chekhov, Williamson, Bovell and the two previous plays I've watched/read by Williams, and with good reason. There are few things more immediate or recognisable by an audience as they way we navigate the unresolved tensions of family, especially when they find themselves enclosed in a small space over a period of time.

It's a favourite story frame for Williams, at least in the three plays of his that I've read so far. Add in heat and humidity, familial friction and dysfunction, a southern setting, some significant and uncomfortable reveals along the way and a health dollop of sexual repression and it's a Tennessee Williams greatest hits package.

This is the third and last of the Tennessee Williams plays I'm looking at but already, even from a very reduced selection, it's clear that Williams has a very good eye and ear for the uncomfortable, repressed and sometimes explosive elements of the things that are done, undone, said and unsaid in a family .

Asked for his favourite of the plays he has written, Tennessee Williams nominated this play... "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." A lot of people agree with him. It's another Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama (1955), also won the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Play in that same year, and its another play that has attracted a conga line of great actors to perform in it.

One of the reasons to watch or study a play is context. It's not the only reason but it often gives a fuller experience when you understand a playwright was writing about something often ignored or left in silence. Context assists with the understanding and appreciation of this play.

I liked it. I also thought it felt tremendously different across the versions I saw, which I'll get to. But first a bit about the play (and I'm trying to cut back the size of these blogs so I'll TRY to keep it brief.

The Play

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is set at a family gathering at which Big Daddy is celebrating his 65th birthday. Gathered at the house are Big Daddy himself, his wife Ida Pollitt (Big Mama), alcoholic son Brick and his wife Maggie (or known as Maggie the Cat), Brick's brother Gooper (ao referred to, mostly by Maggie, as Brother Man), and Brick's sister Mae (referred to as Sister Woman). Also present ar Big Daddy's physician, Doctor Baugh, Reverend Tooker and several of Gooper and Mae's children (who Maggie refers to as the "no neck monsters").

At the gathering, there's much talking about Big Daddy's health. He and Big Mama believe he has been given a clean bill of health, but the rest of the family know otherwise. We don't see a lot of Brother Man and Sister Woman, most of the story takes place in conversations between Brick and Maggie, or Brick and Big Daddy.

Maggie (the Cat) has married into an overwhelming family. She is a sensual and gregarious but unfulfilled woman and is frustrated by Brick's seeming lack of interest in or attraction to her, having not had sex for some time, and his determination to be unsociable and to continue to drink himself into a stupor. Big Daddy is a dominating and overbearing man. He is  heavy on demands on things that Brick needs to do, whether he wants to or not, but it is clear that he favours Brick over Gooper.

These two dyadic relationships  carry the weight of the show, and both lean into Brick and what exactly he is suffering from... what's up with him. And both his father and his wife believe it has something to do with the suicide death of Brick's friend and football team mate, Skipper.

[SPOILER]

Through the course of the lengthy scene and argument between Brick and Big Daddy, Brick reveals that Skipper confessed his attraction to Brick, which he rejected. Some time thereafter, Skipper took his own life. Earlier, Maggie had made comments that alluded to concerns about the closeness between Brick and Skipper. Big Daddy dropped a few hints as well. But in a surprisingly soft scene, Big Daddy attempted to show some don't-ask, don't tell acceptance of what may or may not have happened, and what may or may not have been felt.

Possibly on top of guilt, the matter of lies (he favours the word mendacity) seems to be eating up Brick. He and Maggie are living a lie, he has held on to the truth about Skipper and the family are lying to Big Daddy about his health. When Brick tells Big Daddy the truth about hi health, Big Daddy storms off leaving the family to unravel a little more. Big Mama is also devastated while Maggie, who has been concerned that her lack of closeness to brick may endanger their share of the inheritance, makes up a lie that she is pregnant and, when alone again with brick, commits to making the lie true.

I think it was a wise choice by Williams to concentrate on the central three characters, while allowing us to meet and hear from the the others. It ensured that the many different points of view didn't fragment the story while still layering and reinforcing the family issues.

I also liked that the reveal by Brick about Skipper felt earned. There were some subtle hints and comments along the way so that it didn't feel like a deux ex machina for shock value. But on this occasion, a reader or audience member or viewer may have a very different experience depending on the version they encountered. That's always somewhat true but I was particularly conscious of how some very different visions and differing acting combinations hit very differently. Maggie, for instance, can be played as a Princess Diana type character, trying to make the most of a lifestyle she was unprepared for, or as an active manipulator. Here are the versions I saw. 

The versions I saw

The first version I saw (and the only one I watched all the way through) was the 2017 production performed primarily at the Young Vic in London and then filmed at the Apollo Theatre for National Theatre at Home.  Jack O'Connell is suitably pained throughout as Brick, Sienna Miller is brash and loud, leaning heavily into the Southern accent as Maggie, and Colm Meaney (who I'd loved on Star Trek and the Commitments and pretty much anything he's been in) was commanding and magnetic as Big Daddy, and very sensitive in helping Brick following his big reveal. They used a big fairly open set, a clever shower that appeared to run realistically, a bunch of nudity by O'Connell and Mille (downplayed slightly in the filmed version that showed but didn't focus at length on naked characters. And there was a bucket  load of smoking (a bug bear of mine when it's over done). But it was engaging and powerful and interesting.

The next one I looked at was the 1958 film version, released just a few years after it was written. Burl Ives played Big Daddy, Elizabeth Taylor took on the role of Maggie, and best in the biz Paul Newman played Brick. I have to admit I've never been terribly wowed by Elizabeth Taylor, but she was bloody good in this. And Paul Newman just has to turn up and I cheer. But this is a VERY different story. It removes all of the homosexual overtones, and changes the ending with happy endings for Brick's relationships with his dad and his wife.  Williams himself apparently hated this version and told people not to watch it. The screenwriter thought the audience couldn't tolerate putting Taylor and Newman together and introducing the topic of homosexuality. The screenwriter sucked. Newman has also said he is disappointed with how it turned out. Still, not a bad film if watched without knowledge of the censorship hammered into it.

I also flicked through the 1976 version with Robert Wagner as Brick, his wife the gorgeous Natalie Wood as Maggie (this was five years before someone I may have already mentioned may have killed her), Maureen Stapleton as Big Mama and Sir Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy. It's a made for TV version and it shows. Robert Wagner seemed to think looking sleep means looking anguished and Olivier would not have picked up an Olivier Award for his performance here. At least it didn't edit out significant portions of the story but it's unrecognisable from the Young Vic version.

And another I only flicked through was another made for TV version, the 1984 American Playhouse rendition featuring Rip Torn as Big Daddy, Jessica Lange as Maggie and Tommy Lee Jones as Brick. Like the 1976 version, a low budget effort but some really good performances. In fact, I've never thought Tommy Lee had a lot of range but he plays a very good Brick. Both TV versions stick to the script, as does the Young Vic version although the feel very different, and then there's the 1958 which goes off on a very different direction. Your choice.

Final thoughts

This is the last of three Williams plays I'll cover. He has a very identifiable tone and style and, as I've said before, sometimes these things are like flavours... chocolate, strawberry, liquorice... dealer's choice. So, I liked all three of Williams' plays that I read, but it's probably not entirely my flavour.

I like that his plays have identifiable central themes, and some different ones for each play, and how even when he goes off on tangential conversations, the departures often add to story depth and don't steal focus from the main points. Then when, Brother man and Sister Woman do have moments you get a glance at how greedy, antagonistic and nasty they can be, that the central characters, as flawed as they are, exist in  context and can be viewed somewhat more sympathetically.

On the flip side, like some other playwrights I've looked at, he DOES go on a bit. And I feel that the focus on heavy accents do steal focus at times.

But he's a great writer and you leave "The Glass Menagerie", "Streetcar named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" impacted. The last two in particular pack a bit of an emotional wallop.

While it's probably not a big deal, I also like that he is very intentional with his play titles. One play heavily features a menagerie of glass animals and also uses that as a metaphor, one is named after a streetcar Williams once saw a Steetcar that was bound for Desire Street, which not only was a quirky reference but also emphasised a key them of the play, and this play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" describes how we walk on egg shells and tip toe around the truth like a cat would as it walked across a hot tin roof... even including a character called Cat as a cute throw away.

Williams enjoys words, he enjoys writing, and he enjoys covering themes and topics that at the time of writing were otherwise barely spoken about. They were important plays in their historical context and still very enjoyable in their own right.

Materials accessed

• "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" - script (1955). Available for free at various places online, including the Internet Archive.
• "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" - film (1958). Available on HBO Max and Prime Video by subscription, or by rent or purchase on Prime Video, Google Play, Youtube and Apple TV.
• "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" - TV movie (1976). Available freely on Youtube (1).
• "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" - TV movie (1984). Available freely on Youtube (2).
• "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" - script (2017). Available by subscription on National Theatre at Home.