Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Synopsis

Its summer, and very hot, in the house of Big Daddy - the Mississippi delta's richest cotton planter. Maggie fights to save her marriage to his son. Imprisoned by the past the family is torn apart by revelations of lust, greed and envy. A Pulitzer Prize winner.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 2 December 2009

Although Tennessee Williams’ great play of sexual and domestic mendacity is clearly set among rednecks in the Deep South in the 1950s, Debbie Allen’s revival from Broadway is an almost wholly successful transplant to the 1980s as an all-black Dynasty of the Delta plantation.

Led by the legendary James Earl Jones – surely London’s last chance to see this great figure of the American theatre – as a rumbling, terrifying Big Daddy, Allen’s cast is a compelling synthesis of visiting and local talent.

Her sister Phylicia Rashad repeats her New York performance as a slightly hysterical, spiritually lonely Big Mama, and the stunning Broadway newcomer Sanaa Lathan makes an impressive, vindictive aria of Maggie’s first act torrent of sexual frustration and feline provocation.

Maggie’s marriage to Brick, the former sports star and dedicated alcoholic, is a tragic parody of an ideal pairing: Adrian Lester&...

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Latest User Review

Mark - 25 March 2010:

I agree with Stuart. The set and direction was poor. When an actor has to generate a laugh or a response through an odd quirky action you know the text has not been embodied and the superfluous aimed at instead of the truth. Painful. ...

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