Cat on A Hot Tin Roof

Since the mid-1900s, Tennessee Williams has been one of the most famous American playwrights. One of the many stage classics that he penned would have to be Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a title that is recognizable to most Americans nowadays. This family drama, published in the mid-1950s, deals with guilt, grief, greed, and more delectably gritty topics in its attempt to capture a slice of life in a wealthy Southern home. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has a deeply emotion-based plot and structure that make it a quite notable play.

The action seen in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof all occurs in a hot bedroom in a wealthy home on the Mississippi Delta, and, as such, the southern flair that was characteristic of the 1950s—which is when the play is set—acts as a constant backdrop for the onstage events. The curtain first opens on Margaret complaining and nagging her drunken and apathetic husband, Brick. She dislikes her rowdy nieces and nephews sharing the house with them. She wails about the fluctuating prospects of inheritance that may or may not be provided by her near-dead father-in-law. She whines about not having a baby of her own, which she wholeheartedly blames on the fact that Brick has been refusing to sleep with her. The entire first act really reads as a long, extended monologue being given by Margaret with short interruptions by mainly Brick and two other characters who peek their heads in for a moment: Margaret and Brick’s sister-in-law, Mae, and Brick’s mother, Big Mama. Over the course of her diatribe, we learn that the family has gathered together for Big Daddy’s birthday, that Big Daddy is dying of cancer—though both Big Mama and Bid Daddy himself have yet to know this fact—that Margaret is terribly insecure about her inability to have a c...

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... year. The piece is wrought wuth excellent acting opportunities, but in my opinion, it doesn’t seem to offer much more besides its take on naturalism, which I think could be shown in even better plays with more to them, such as Hedda Gabler or Miss Julie. Perhaps the writing was simply not my style, but I felt the ongoing themes of lies couldn’t sustain the piece on their own. I was unable to truly connect with any one character, and with modern theatre depending so heavily on character development, I think that—without the crutch of its famous name and author to lean on—the show wouldn’t do incredibly at the box office. Its modern appeal aside, though, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is an interesting foray into American naturalism, and its plot, structure, and themes aim to delve into the tense problems of a relatable Southern family, which marks a success in and of itself.