Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Bear Theatre

 August 21-23 and 28-30, Community High School Theater, 7:30 pm (Sunday at 2), 2 hours 45 minutes with one intermission.

This play won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, and deservedly so - it's an extremely well written piece of literature, and this production certainly does it justice. 

About the play - get ready for a few spoilers. (I adhere to the apparently-proven theory that spoilers actually enhance our experience of narrative.) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is about a dysfunctional family whose patriarch owns a cotton empire in the Mississippi delta. The play revolves around Brick, the younger son, and his wife, Maggie. Brick and Maggie have an unfulfilling marriage due in large part to Brick's self-destructive drinking in response to his best friend's death, and the suspicion that the friendship had homoerotic elements. (It helps to remember that Tennessee Williams, the author, was a gay man living in a time with very little acceptance of homosexuality. And if you're unfamiliar, prepare yourself for one of those 1950s dramas in which people drink way more than seems humanly possible and still don't pass out or succumb to alcohol poisoning.) The action of the play takes place at the family plantation house, on the occasion of Big Daddy's 65th birthday, at a time when the brothers and their wives know Big Daddy has terminal cancer, but they haven't yet told their parents. The play explores themes of secrets, lies and truth telling, class and greed, and the contrast between facing mortality and creating new life.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is heavy on talking and character development and emotional drama; it's low on plot and action. So it's a challenging play to mount. You need really good actors, and really good directing, to do well with a play like this. Lucky for us, we have both in this production.

Director David Walton picked some top notch talent for this play, and directed them well. Nearly every actor spoke Williams' well-written dialogue clearly and in a good pace. Several scenes had long stretches of one person talking, but nevertheless, Walton used effective blocking and stage business to keep visual interest and keep the pace crisp. It was basically never boring, which is a risk for a wordy, heavy play like this. Walton also played up the comedy and kept the audience on their toes, which made the touching moments that much more powerful when they came. 

I will not beat around the bush: Lorin Mello's extraordinarily strong performance carried this production. She played Maggie with so much grace, poise, hunger, and desperation it made me ache in sympathy. Her lines were expertly delivered - natural, sardonic, humorous, poignant. She inhabited the character through and through. Bear Theatre prides itself on making space for newcomers on its stage, and indeed I had never seen Mello perform before. But I certainly look forward to seeing her do so again.

Nick Vogel, as Brick, hit some notes better than others, and I found his oral delivery the least easy to hear and understand. He was very good at frustrated and beleaguered. And his character is supposed to be both depressed and drunk, so perhaps I shouldn't expect too much here. But I have seen another actor be both depressed and charismatic, so I know it can be done - I wished for more likeability, more charisma from Brick. Because he is, somewhat inexplicably, the favorite son. 

Tina Edwards played a delightful, bustling and controlling Big Mama: we laugh with her and feel her pain as she plays the quintessential southern matriarch. Chris Reidy as Big Daddy did a fine job. It took me a while to warm up to him - I wanted more richness in his voice, more gravitas in his manner - but by the end of his long scene with Brick I came to appreciate the more pinched portrayal of this complex man who loved his favorite son despite his flaws. 

I'm a little unclear about why Gooper and Mae are so disliked, both by Brick and Maggie, and by Big Mama and Big Daddy. I get that their children are annoying, these four "no neck monsters" in Maggie's terms. The children were one of my favorite parts of this production - whenever the four children (Gabriela Velez, Lucy Burnette, Sandy Delaney, and Caitlin Parcetich) stormed through the stage in a blaze of shrieks or other high-energy disruption it was a welcome moment of levity and fun. The kids did a wonderful job. But Gooper and Mae themselves seem no more unkind than anyone else in this play, and they are the ones doing things right - having children and having a successful career in law - so why do the other characters hate them so much? 

That's a question for Tennessee Williams. But it's also a question for the director. As an audience member I was honestly just a bit confused. How am I supposed to feel about them? Sorry that they are bullied by the others? Or should we join the others' disdain? Betsy Quillen's portrayal of Mae was delightful - she inhabited the role well, and brought vigor to her feud with Maggie. Ben Moreno's Gooper was clear and on point. But neither of them were particularly despicable. I didn't see why they were so castigated by the others. I can't tell if Williams would have wanted that confusion, or if the production fell short of clarity on this point.

The set was lovely. James Gabello did a wonderful job with the tall ceiling, wispy curtains, and mid century furniture. The stage was a good size for a cast of this number (by contrast with, say, Romeo and Juliet, which felt a little crowded). And the set allowed Walton to keep us engaged with excellent blocking and stage movement.

Pam Winchell's costumes for Maggie's character were especially strong. Loved that flowered dress! But I spent way too much time pondering Brick's white pajamas. White? Really? A lot of the set is also white. Perhaps a preponderance of white speaks of southern grace or a 1950s wealthy aesthetic, but it wasn't working for me. Your mileage may vary. I also couldn't figure out why Big Mama was wearing a kind of button down dress with a white collar along with extremely blingy diamonds on her neck and wrist... I would have picked pearls, if anything, to go with what was a relatively dressed down outfit. But her husband describes her as covered in diamonds later in the play, so that's non negotiable... but I still think the dress did not work with the diamonds. Perhaps that's intentional? It's unclear to me how elegant Big Mama is supposed to be, but she is certainly rich. 

Lighting and sound had some strengths and weaknesses. There were many sound cues, and most went well, though at one point a storm ended abruptly in a way that sounded wrong. The music choice was very good, especially the Miles Davis at the end. At a few points the lighting shifted when a character was having a moment of reflection or revelation, which was effective in its intention but a little clumsy in execution, I thought. The ending lighting - reddish as Brick and Maggie seem to reconcile - was effective and shaped the scene very well. 

We don't get enough good literature in our lives, do we? This is a play that keeps you thinking and thinking. The couples are similar, but also so different from each other. The secrets and lies are destructive, but it's how you get by and survive in a world that doesn't accept certain things (homosexuality, childlessness, cancer, divorce). The riches of this family are (probably) built on exploitation - is Williams saying they are rotten to the core because of it? Etc. Etc. 

It's a really good play. They do a very good job with it. This is very much worth your time.