Cat On A Hot Tin Roof @ Almeida Theatre, London
I was very, very fortunate to bag a returned ticket for this splendid, visceral adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play. However, public transport had got wind of this and made my travel there horrific. The roads were gridlocked so a 15–20 minute bus journey took 45 — I could have walked faster as we literally sat on the road. I’d missed my train so later train decided to run a little late (just because). Then the tube ran late arrghhhh. I was now 45 minutes late and a bit hysterical because of the ominous large letters on my ticket informing me that LATECOMERS WILL NOT BE ADMITTED, I almost didn’t go — however my bagged ticket was not cheap (for me, nor did it require re-mortgaging as some shows do!)) and I reasoned that there must be an interval where I could sneak in.
And it was worth it. Almeida staff were incredibly kind, popped some headphones on me and I watched this searing drama on a screen until an interval. Cannot express enough my thanks to Almeida Theatre staff for their kindness and great customer service.
Whilst annoying to have missed 45 minutes; as a three hour play it was worth showing up late due to not for the public public transport transportageddon to see it. I was glad I’d used all the Kenergy to see Kingsley Ben-Adir and Daisy Edgar-Jones on stage, together, in Rebecca Frecknall’s production. But this is no Kendom or Mojo Dojo Casa House — instead it’s a family gone rotten from the inside.
I’ve only seen bits of the movie and had no real idea of the plot (beyond Paul Newman brooding and Elizabeth Taylor wandering around in a slip), so went in very cold. It was intense and shockingly plantation-like in its language, expectations and views and treatment of people. Although this is a post-war play.
It’s Big Daddy’s (Lennie James) birthday. And he decides to celebrate by gathering his family around him — and his grandchildren, and then telling them to all shut up and be quiet, especially the women. In his opinion, the only good woman is a pregnant silent one which pits the sisters-in-law against each other. Maggie (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is young, vivacious and beautiful, but very much not pregnant, which creates rivalry with her sister-in-law and a difficult marriage. However, Brick and Maggie put on a front and pretend everything’s fine, either when family members try to undermine this version of reality. Maggie glams up in a stunning gun-metal silver slip dress, a slash of red lipstick and goes to war, whilst impersonating the perfect housewife and hostess. From the bit I saw of the first half of the play, she was sitting on her husband Brick almost forcing him to be with her. He, however, had hurt his leg and was hiding deep grief at the death of a close friend in endless drinking. (A literal piano bar — a grand piano doubled up as a bar and the player was the ghost of Brick’s dead friend, who continued to haunt the scene and play discordant jazz (Seb Carrington). At points, both he — and Maggie — turn catlike and crawl across the piano) as the tension keeps cranking and cranking up. Exacerbated too by the ornate polished silver metal house frame that the play takes place in.
Big Daddy’s other opinion is that the only kind of man worth knowing and being is a ‘manly man’. This leads him to pit his sons against each other. He clearly favours Brick — and ignores the hard-working, consistent, child-producing other son, Gooper (Ukweli Roach). His other son’s wife, Mae (Pearl Chanda), is very pregnant. Even Big Momma favours Brick, styling herself ‘the mother of one son’ and fawning over Brick as though he’s still a child. Brick drinks heavily (which everyone sees and knows but pretends isn’t happening) and has recently lost his job as a sports commentator. Hinted at, though never openly discussed is the tragic death of his close friend Skipper. Kingsley Ben-Adir did an amazing job of showing the despair of alcoholism and in hopping around the stage on one leg for essentially three hours (bar some lying around).
What didn’t work so well was the way that Big Daddy described his wife ‘Big Momma’ (Clare Burt). Impossibly groomed and glamours, sparkling with sequins; when Big Daddy made cruel comments about her being ugly, undesirable and fat, you had to wonder why he hadn’t gone to SpecSavers? She really wasn’t, so you could only conclude that he was super prejudiced — and he is, as revealed in a moment of drinking and inappropriate parenting when Big Daddy starts telling Brick how he’s going to live by committing adultery with younger women and how little he desires his wife.
Broken by the nieces and nephews sneering at Maggie or playing about the house, this is a family that claws at each other, spilling secrets out of their wounds. At one point a preacher turns up, but limply flees the scene — he can’t stop the madness going on here. Clearly buckling at the thought and scale of the exorcism needed here! Whilst the family express happy birthday wishes to Big Daddy and an enormous cake, it’s clear very soon that something is terribly, terribly wrong with this family gathering. Also that the best use for Big Daddy’s birthday cake is for Big Momma to throw it over him, pack her bags and leave, Despite his cruelty she’s convinced herself that he’s joking, he doesn’t mean it — only he really, really does. He even throws chairs around as the family guess at his health condition and then the siblings know and start revealing the results of a recent test.
Essentially a stylised family behaving horribly, we lose the scene (which I know from the movie) where Brick screams up at Maggie’s room. Instead, everyone listens in on everyone else and secrets are known or guessed at. Brick’s brother listen in on Maggie and Brick’s arguments. Big Momma gets shut out of the room so she can’t listen in on Big Daddy’s conversations. Big Daddy even threatens to move his other son and wife to a different room due to their snooping behaviour. This atmosphere of suspicion is reinforced by Brick’s friends ghost lurking around too — eventually leading to a pain-filled embrace with Brick — and lots of atmospheric disjointed jazz. And how, as in The Seagull, characters sit at the periphery of the outline of the house or stand at the sides when they’re ‘off-stage’.
Brick lies on the floor in despair; whilst Maggie is hysterical and triumphant, determined to make her lie about having a baby true. Like Little Foxes, the play uses and highlights the language of production, processing and the ways plantations viewed, counted and treated human beings. In this play, it’s also mixed up with consumerism — Big Daddy and Big Momma have travelled to Europe previously, where he sneers that she couldn’t stop spending or buying, and now all her purchases are rotting in the basement. What we see is an aggressive, controlling man who disregards completely his well-put together, tasteful and stylish wife and favours one son over another. Apart from producing grandchildren, he almost ignores his other son — only Brick seems to get attention (and hideously inappropriate father-son confidences). It is to Brick that his father plans to will his estate — for although he denies it, all is not well with his health. And over this we see a family tussle for the estate — and desire for legacy, consistency, clean handover, succession…and power.
Impressively building with tension, everything explodes at the end into chaos as the characters all scramble for control over each other, and Maggie produces her own shocking secret reveal. It’s intriguing how both Maggie and Big Daddy try to get control over Brick through access to alcohol — Maggie is seen pouring bottles away. Big Daddy confronts Brick about his drinking and dramatic character change, threatens him by taking his crutch away, and then joins him in a drink for some revelations about his own life plans. Enjoy too spotting when the characters quote the title of the play as the seething weather increases the franticness of the characters and some impressive standing on a piano from Daisy Edgar-Jones.
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