Cat

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
by Tennessee Williams

April 8-24, 2011
At the Des Moines Social Club

In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. Maggie, Big Daddy’s daughter-in-law, wants to give him the news that she’s finally become pregnant by his favorite son, Brick. But Brick won’t cooperate in Maggie’s plans and prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for an error in judgment that nearly cost her her marriage. Swarming around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his position of most-beloved son.

Atkinson’s review in the NY Times called it “a stunning drama…It is the quintessence of life. It is the basic truth… CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is a delicately wrought exercise in human communication… As the expression of a brooding point of view about life, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is limpid and effortless. As theatre, it is superb.”


Directed by Mark Gruber