DIRECTOR
PLAYWRIGHT
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
MILWAUKEE REP
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first appeared in 1955, based partly on “Three Players of a Summer Game,” a short story Williams had previously written. Williams received his second Pulitzer Prize for the work.
It’s a play that wrestles with definitions of manliness and repressed homosexuality - as Williams did. More importantly - from Gooper and Mae’s grab for their share, to Maggie’s longing for a child, to Big Daddy’s facing of his own mortality – it’s about the courage to tell the truth and the will to survive.
Tennessee is one of our greatest writers, not because he gives us answers, but because his voice is astonishingly alive. His language exudes a richness and realness of character, time and place. He sings from the heart with roots in the dirt.
REVIEWS
“…the show is a sterling example of superb ensemble acting. There are no weak links on stage…It is [Jim] Baker’s gritty, soul-stirring performance, part of director Edward Morgan’s intelligent and subtly different approach to the play, that makes him the star at the expense of no one else. The effect of Morgan’s direction and Baker’s acting is a clarity of the play’s intent – exposure of falseness and hypocrisy – to a degree rarely achieved in productions of this frequently staged drama.
...We get a hint of where this “Cat” is headed before the show begins. Designer Michael Frenkel’s bedroom set reflects the opulence of a Southern plantation mansion, but small tree branches are tangled around some of the furniture and a chandelier. They are like weeds inexplicably growing in a grand indoor setting, and they suggest the inner disorder and creeping spiritual decay that has infected Big Daddy’s family.”
– Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Director Edward Morgan’s fresh reading and strategic casting makes for a Cat with a difference…Morgan has staged not the usual Cat about vamps and gay jocks, but a drama of avaricious fathers and disillusioned sons, a conflict that makes sense of all Williams’ Themes and lasts until Brick drops his crutch in the play’s final seconds.”
– Shepherd Express
Lights: Robert Jared
Costumes: Martha Hally
Set: Michael Fenkel
Sound: Barry Funderburg
Dialects: Christine Adair
