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Theatre listings > Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. - Tour. Playwright - Tennessee Williams. Director - Richard Baron Production Details including cast Here. Company - co-production between The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company and Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. Venue - Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh 0131 248 4848. Dates - Free preview 21 October at 7.45pm. 22 October - 19 November 2005. Evenings: Tuesdays - Saturdays at 7.45pm Matinees: 26 & 29 October and 2, 5 9 & 12 November at 2.30pm. Perviously toured to Nottingham Playhouse and Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. Seen to review at Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh on 22 Ocotber 2005. Run Time - 3 hours including two Intervals. Reviewer Ksenija Horvat. Fiery, eruptive Big Daddy but too jocular elsewhere.
The involvement of Nottingham Playhouse and Belgrade Theatre indicated pooling together of a rich contingent of fabulously talented performers whose portrayals of Williams' complex, passionate and deeply flawed characters would explode from the Royal Lyceum's stage. The Edinburgh's audience braced themselves for a sultry night of dark secrets and revelations. Everyone who is anyone showed on the night, travelling from nigh and from afar to see this unique play written by a man who was an expert storyteller of the human suffering. The whole theatre was electrified with anticipation. After such a powerful pre-show expose, once the audience entered the auditorium they were met by a lukewarm atmosphere at its best, and an overly realistic beige and mauve set, an unlikely ambience for Williams' dark Deep South intense drama. For what it is worth, this is not a bad production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it angles for an over-the-top jocular approach to a difficult subject, and, indeed, it does steal a few laughs in its funniest, most pantomimic moments. However, the constant overplaying erodes the rich layers of meaning hidden in Williams' tale, and shows, time and time over again, how difficult it is to get the balance right in Williams's plays, and how simple it is to fall off the tight rope that he sets up for his players and his audiences alike. A razor-sharp dissection of a society built on mendacity and greed, the inability to communicate that breeds misunderstandings and loneliness, the collapse of a great American Dream embodied in Big Daddy, the blissful heights and the pits of despair found in marital bed, the rotting of family values are all at the core of Williams' opus. In various productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to date, the eponymous cat of the title has always been represented by Maggie, a poor quick-witted beauty from the wrong side of the track married to America's blue-eyed boy. In truth, all of the characters in the play are like cats on a hot tin roof, disatissfied with their lives and longing for release, yet clinging to their dark secret desires for as long as they can. In Baron's upbeat, but not always effective direction, these characters' ample complexities never fly off the ground. All of the characters in Cat on the Hot Tin Roof are the slaves of their individual agendae. Mae and Gooper's burning ambition is to obtain control over Big Daddy's plantation, the biggest piece of land on this side of the delta. Here, in Candida Gubbins and Rory Murray's representation, they have been turned into pitiful caricatures. Still one may occasionally see the glimpses of Williams' characters shining through, at the moment when Big Mama hints that Gooper may not be Big Daddy's son, and he sits helpless aside sobbing, Mae sits on the bed, motionless and defeated, looking at her husband. Both Gubbins and Murray underplay this moment beautifully, and turn it into a potentially memorable vignette, one of a few that lighten the show. Christine Absalom's Big Mama is another hopelessly overplayed character who rises above cliche only by the virtue of Absalom's strong performance in the third part. Jamie Chapman gets a few laughs as a bumbling priest, and Morgan Deare, Yvonne Newman and Elise Davison offer solid backup performances. Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, as Brick, takes a long time to establish his character, and sometimes overreaches the mark, but all in all gives a dimensional and potentially inspired performance. In contrast, Lesley Harcourt's Maggie appears overdone and deeply flawed. Maggie is a notoriously difficult part to play, a challenging creature driven by overpowering hunger that can be played as physical desire on the one hand, and as the crippling fear of loss on the other. Elizabeth Taylor was often accused of overplaying her in 1958 film version, but in effect, she succeeded in remaining on the edge of a very thin rope long enough to show the audience most elaborate layers Maggie's emotional turmoil. Harcourt's portrayal of Maggie is glamorous indeed, but it lacks savoir-faire needed for the part. The true driving force of the second part, and of the show in its entirety, is Aaron Shirley's fiery, eruptive Big Daddy who fills the stage with his larger-than-life presence, and shows a spark of Williams's genius come live on stage. The production's uneven pace and continuous overplaying are not helped by a lackluster set and lighting, which makes this into quite an ordinary, never above average affair. On the whole, this is an opportunity lost to present on an Edinburgh stage one of the greatest dramatic works of the twentieth-century. © Ksenija Horvat 22 October 2005. - Published on www.Edinburghguide.com Production Details. Designer - Edward Lipscombe. Lighting Designer - Jeanine Davies. Sound Designer - Jon Beales. Assistant Director - Zoe Waterman. Voice Coach - Sally Hague. Choreographer - Elise Davison. Cast (In the order of appearance) - Lesley Harcourt - Maggie; Dugald Bruce-Lockhart - Brick; Candida Gubbins - Mae; Christine Absalom - Big Mama; Elise Davison - Dixie; Aaron Shirley - Big Daddy; Jamie Chapman - Reverend Tooker; Rory Murray - Gooper; Morgan Deare - Dr Baugh; Yvonne Newman - Sookey; Children Red Team. Reuben Lowenthal, Finlay Tinto, Amber Milne, Billie Owens; Children Blue Team. Lucy Sharpe, Sarah Mills, Ben Hughes, Ciara McCaw; Reserves. Ellie Street, Aidan Curran, Rebecca Ramage (All the children are members of the Lyceum Youth Theatre). Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is thelma@edinburghguide.com Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. Theatre listings >
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