Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Company: Queensland Theatre Company
Venue: Playhouse, QPAC, Southbank, Brisbane
Dates: To 3 September 2011

This is the production to finally exorcise the ghost of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman’s famous movie of the play. It runs the whole three hours of Tennessee Williams’ text with superb acting and tension you wouldn’t believe.

The set, taking up the entire width of the Playhouse stage is so evocative of the cotton plantation mansion it instantly create the steaminess of the tropical night.

I didn’t expect to enjoy the play as much as I did. I’ve seen it several times, including a good amateur production a few months ago so the plot is familiar and the play is very long.

On top of that, the last QTC production of a Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire was woeful. In fact when Cat was programmed I wondered why a professional company would bother. It is performed regularly by amateur companies these days and it has a huge cast – 13 in all including the children. But now I can understand why. The text of course is written in beautiful, timeless language and interpreted by experienced professionals it takes on a completely different life.

It a three-act, but as usual these days it was turned into two with one interval cut. In this case it was the one between the first two acts – which meant a two hour first act. Now that is a long time to sit in a theatre, but it wasn’t a problem. The undercurrents and tension kept me on the edge of my seat. It was like seeing the play for the first time. Of course the plot is the same - it is Big Daddy’s 65th birthday and he is dying with cancer. The family, grandkids included, is gathered to celebrate the birthday and ignore the illness.

Youngest son Brick, the Peter Pan former football struts around with his leg in plaster with the aid of a crutch because he broke his leg in a drunken escapade the night before. He is drinking heavily, and refuses to change out of his pyjamas. Since his lifelong friend fellow football player Skipper died, Brick has been in deep mourning and refuses to sleep with his wife, Maggie.

To make this play work as it should you need two super strong characters – Maggie the Cat and Big Daddy.

Cheree Cassidy was Maggie. She is probably better known for her appearances in Underbelly the Golden Mile, Packed to The Rafters and Paper Giants. She’s a beautiful woman and was sexy as hell on stage. She was also in complete control of the dialogue and accent, especially in the opening scenes when she basically has a ten minute monologue with a few interruptions from Brick. She was every bit the cat as she stretched and roamed the room, filled with nervous energy and frustrated sexuality.

My favourite interpretation of Big Daddy has always been Burl Ives from the movie. Ives was a big powerful figure in every way. John Stanton, who played him in this show, was the complete opposite. He is average height and slim, but for the first time I saw Big Daddy as being big in power and personality rather than size and of course he was dying of late stage cancer, so in reality would have lost a lot of weight.

Stanton’s Big Daddy was big in presence. He dominated everyone in his family with sheer personality. He also managed to impose some softness to the hard man. This time I saw Big Daddy not as a cruel bully, but a strong man who didn’t suffer fools gladly, didn’t like sycophants and was afraid for his own mortality.

He loved his younger son more not because he was cute, as his mother did, but because, despite his weakness he didn’t back down and didn’t crawl for recognition like older son Gooper. I reckon he saw a lot of himself in his drunken, rebel boy.

Brick is not an easy role. He has fewer lines than most and spends most of his time limping to the liquor cabinet and pouring drinks. He has to react more than act, but Tom O’Sullivan made you feel for him rather than dislike or pity him. And his outrage when Big Daddy infers that he might be gay comes over as true rather than bluster as is so often the case. He saw his friendship with his dead mate Skipper as a pure and it was his shock at Skipper’s confessions rather than his death that turned him into the drunk that he was.

Carol Burns of course was faultless as Big Momma. You certainly knew when she was on stage! I reckon she should be declared a national treasure. The rest of the roles tend to be overshadowed by the big four, but Hugh Parker held his own as Gooper and Caitlin Beresford-Ord was nicely irritating as the constantly pregnant and bossy Mae. Danny Murphy won a few laughs as the Reverend Tooke and Damon Lockward did well as Dr Baugh.

The Southern accents were not consistent though. Stanton’s Burtonian tones made it difficult for him to create the soft Southern drawl and Tom O’Sullivan dropped in and out while some hardly bothered. But where this was obvious at the start the strength of performances overcame the accent problem and all was forgiven.

Eric Scott

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