Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a 1955 American three-act play by Tennessee Williams. The play, an adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", was written between 1953 and 1955.Williams, Tennessee. Plays 1937–1955. Mel Gussow and Kenneth Holditch, eds. New York: Library of America, 2000, pp. 1017–1018, 1034. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. Set in the "plantation home in the Mississippi Delta" of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie "the Cat", Brick's wife.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof features motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression, and death. The dialogue throughout is often written using eye dialect (nonstandard spelling) intended to represent accents of the Southern United States. The original production starred Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives, and Ben Gazzara. The play was adapted as a film of the same name in 1958, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick, with Ives and Madeleine Sherwood recreating their stage roles.
Williams made substantial excisions and alterations to the play for a revival in 1974. This has been the version used for most subsequent revivals, which have been numerous.
Plot
A family in the American South is in crisis, especially the husband and wife, Brick and Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and the crisis unspools with Brick's family over the course of one evening's gathering at the family plantation in Mississippi. The party celebrates the birthday of patriarch Big Daddy Pollitt, "the Delta's biggest cotton-planter", and his return from the Ochsner Clinic with what he has been told is a clean bill of health. All family members (except Big Daddy and his wife, Big Mama) are aware of Big Daddy's true diagnosis: he is dying of cancer. His family has lied to Big Daddy and Big Mama to spare them pain on the patriarch's birthday, but throughout the course of the play, it becomes clear that the Pollitt family has long constructed a web of deceit for itself.
Maggie, determined and beautiful, has escaped a childhood of poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitts, but finds herself unfulfilled. The family is aware that Brick has not slept with Maggie for a long time, which has strained their marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, infuriates her by ignoring his brother Gooper's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference and his drinking have escalated with the suicide of his football buddy Skipper. Maggie fears that Brick's malaise will ensure that Gooper and his wife, Mae, inherit Big Daddy's estate.
Over the evening, each member of the family faces the issues they have bottled up inside. Big Daddy attempts a reconciliation with the alcoholic Brick. Both Big Daddy and Maggie separately confront Brick about the true nature of his close friendship with Skipper, which appears to be the source of Brick's sorrow and the cause of his alcoholism. Brick explains to Big Daddy that the friendship troubled Maggie, who jealously believed it had a romantic undercurrent, and says Skipper took Maggie to bed to prove her wrong but could not complete the act, raising inner doubts that made him "snap". Brick also reveals that, shortly before his suicide, Skipper confessed his attraction to Brick, but Brick rejected him.
Disgusted by the family's mendacity, Brick tells Big Daddy that the report from the clinic about his condition was falsified for his sake. Big Daddy storms out of the room, leading the rest to drift inside. Maggie, Brick, Mae, Gooper, and Doc Baugh (the family's physician) decide to tell Big Mama the truth about her husband's illness, and she is devastated by the news. Gooper and Mae start to discuss the division of the Pollitt estate. Big Mama defends her husband from their proposals.
Big Daddy reappears and makes known his plans to die peacefully. Attempting to secure Brick's inheritance, Maggie tells him she is pregnant. Gooper and Mae know this is a lie, but Big Mama and Big Daddy believe that Maggie "has life". When they are alone again, Maggie locks away the liquor and promises Brick that she will "make the lie true".
Themes
Falsehoods and untruths Mendacity is a recurring theme in the play. Brick uses the word to express his disgust with the "lies and liars" he sees around him, and with complicated rules of social conduct in Southern society and culture. Big Daddy says that Brick's disgust with mendacity is really disgust with himself for rejecting Skipper before his suicide. Except for Brick, the entire family lies to Big Daddy and Big Mama about his terminal cancer. Furthermore, Big Daddy lies to his wife, and Gooper and Mae exhibit avaricious motives in their attempt to secure Big Daddy's estate.
In some cases, characters refuse to believe certain statements, leading them to believe they are lies. A recurring phrase is the line, "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?", said by both Big Daddy and Brick after Big Mama and Maggie (respectively) proclaim their love. The characters' statements of feeling are no longer clear-cut truths or lies; instead, they become subject to greater or lesser certainty. This phrase is the last line of the play as originally written by Williams and again in the 1974 version.
Facing death How humans deal with death is also a focus of this play, as are the futility and nihilism some feel when confronted with imminent mortality. Similar ideas are found in Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night", which Williams excerpted and added as an epigraph to his 1974 version. Thomas wrote the poem to his dying father.
Additionally, in one of his many drafts, in a footnote on Big Daddy's action in the third act, Williams deems Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a "play which says only one affirmative thing about 'Man's Fate': that he has it still in his power not to squeal like a pig but to keep a tight mouth about it."
Stage productions
Original production The original Broadway production, which opened at the Morosco Theater on March 24, 1955, was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazzara as Brick, Burl Ives as Big Daddy, Mildred Dunnock as Big Mama, Pat Hingle as Gooper, and Madeleine Sherwood as Mae. Bel Geddes was the only cast member nominated for a Tony Award, and Kazan was nominated for Best Director of a Play. Kazan had enormous power in the industry at the time, sufficient to convince Williams to rewrite the third act to Kazan's liking. Kazan requested that Maggie be shown as more sympathetic, the dying Big Daddy make a reappearance, and Brick undergo some sort of moral awakening. Williams capitulated, but when the play was published later that year by New Directions Publishing, it included two versions of act three, the original and the Broadway revision, with his accompanying "Note of Explanation". For its 1974 revival, Williams made further revisions to all three acts, and New Directions published that version of the play in 1975. Williams, Tennessee. Plays 1937–1955, pp. 1034–1035.
Both Ives and Sherwood reprised their roles in the 1958 film version. The cast also featured the southern blues duo Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and had as Gazzara's understudy the young Cliff Robertson. When Gazzara left the play, Jack Lord replaced him. Others from the original Broadway production included R. G. Armstrong as Doctor Baugh, Fred Stewart as Reverend Tooker, Janice Dunn as Trixie, Seth Edwards as Sonny, Maxwell Glanville as Lacey, Pauline Hahn as Dixie, Darryl Richard as Buster, Eva Vaughn Smith as Daisy, and Musa Williams as Sookey.
In London, the play was directed by Peter Hall and opened at the Comedy Theatre on January 30, 1958. Kim Stanley starred as Maggie, Paul Massie as Brick, and Leo McKern as Big Daddy.Theatre World Annual (London) number nine [editor: Frances Stephens], London 1958
Revivals An acclaimed 1974 revival by the American Shakespeare Theatre featured Elizabeth Ashley (Maggie), Keir Dullea (Brick), Fred Gwynne (Big Daddy), Kate Reid and Charles Siebert and later transferred to Broadway's ANTA Theater. Ashley was nominated for a Tony Award. Williams included a revised third act and made substantial revisions elsewhere.Albee, Edward: "Introduction" for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, p. 8. New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2004. When this production moved from Connecticut to Broadway, the part of Lacey was omitted and the number of Mae and Gooper's children was reduced to three. In that same decade, John Carradine—who claimed to be Williams's original choice for the role in 1955—and Mercedes McCambridge toured in a road company production as Big Daddy and Big Mama.
The 1988 London National Theatre production, directed by Howard Davies, starred Ian Charleson (Brick), Lindsay Duncan (Maggie), Barbara Leigh-Hunt (, and Eric Porter. The Observer's theater critic Michael Ratcliffe offered qualified praise for the production, especially admiring Porter's performance as Big Daddy and the play's second act, while critiquing the first act and Duncan's speaking style. In 2012, Michael Billington referred to the production as the first "British production that finally did full justice to Williams's symphonic play."
Cat returned to Broadway in 1990 with a revival also directed by Howard Davies. The production ran for 149 performances and grossed $6.8 million. Kathleen Turner (Maggie), Charles Durning (Big Daddy), and Polly Holliday (Big Mama) each earned Tony nominations for their performances, with Durning the sole winner.
A 2001 production at the Lyric Shaftesbury, London, was the first West End revival since 1958. Directed by Anthony Page, the production featured Brendan Fraser (Brick), Frances O'Connor (Maggie), Ned Beatty (Big Daddy) and Gemma Jones (Big Mama). It also included Abigail McKern—daughter of London's original Big Daddy, Leo McKern—as Mae. Reviews were generally positive, especially regarding Beatty's performance.
Page's production shifted to Broadway for a 2003 staging that starred Ashley Judd (Maggie) and Jason Patric (Brick). Though it was a financial success that recouped its investment, the revival received mixed reviews. Ben Brantley panned Patric and Judd's performances as stilted, but praised Ned Beatty as Big Daddy and Margo Martindale as Big Mama. John Simon had greater praise for Judd—as "scrupulously dedicated"—but likewise praised Beatty and Martindale while lambasting Patric. Martindale earned the show's sole Tony nomination. The production closed early in March 2004—after 145 performances and an $8.9 million gross—due to Judd sustaining an ankle injury that prevented her from performing.
A 2003 revival at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney was directed by Simon Stone and starred Jacqueline McKenzie as Maggie, Ewen Leslie as Brick, and Marshall Napier as Big Daddy. This production was a box-office hit, with the season extended to the Theatre Royal, Sydney.
A 2004 production at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., featured Mary Stuart Masterson as Maggie, Jeremy Davidson as Brick, George Grizzard as Big Daddy, Dana Ivey as Big Mama, and Emily Skinner as Mae. Shortly afterward, Masterson and Davidson married.