CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF.
London.
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
by TennesseeWilliams.
Novello Theatre Aldwych WC2B 4LD.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 55min One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 482 5170.
www.catwestend.com
Review: Heather Neill 2 December 2009.
New period, different ethnicity, same powerful play.
In one way, casting black actors in Tennessee Williams’s play about a larger-than-life Southern landowner and his fractious tribe makes very little difference. Favouritism, petty jealousies, greed and mendacity - a recurring word in Williams’s dialogue - are common in families of all kinds. Yet, this is also a daring thing to do: after all there were few opportunities in ’50s Mississippi, in life or on stage, for anyone who wasn’t white. Debbie Allen, who directs with panache, has updated the action to the ’80s, which perhaps mitigates this historical difficulty but otherwise makes very little difference to the play.
The draw for many in the audience is James Earl Jones who fills the role of the magnate Big Daddy with swaggering ease. His presence skews the effect of the ensemble somewhat - the night I was there he received an ovation on his first entrance - but then Big Daddy should be a star in his firmament. Nevertheless subtlety enters his central second-act stand-off with his son Brick late in their exchange. When it does, when he learns that cancer will end his days sooner than he had previously thought, he is stricken - human after all.
Adrian Lester as Brick, the favourite son, his spirit as broken as his fractured ankle, conveys the sullen confusion of a macho sports star who has lost the man he loves and cannot admit the fact even to himself. Alcohol is his only refuge. He is hearbreakingly ridiculous as he lunges at his estranged wife Maggie with a crutch. She, meanwhile, in Sanaa Lathan’s sinewy performance is all steely intelligence; this cat relies more on verbal claws than sexy purring.
Elsewhere, Phylicia Rashad’s Big Mama has a perfectly timed line in cattiness herself while Peter de Jersey and Nina Sosanya provide welcome humour with their cloying determination to drill their mini-monster progeny into charming grandchildren worthy of a legacy.
Williams’s play is as emotionally compelling, as beautifully-crafted as it ever was and shines anew in this vibrant production played on Morgan Large’s suitably gaudy set.
Maggie: Sanaa Lathan.
Brick: Adrian Lester.
Big Daddy: James Earl Jones.
Big Mama: Phylicia Rashad.
Gooper: Peter de Jersey.
Mae: Nina Sosanya.
Reverend Tooker: Derek Griffiths.
Doctor Bough: Joseph Mydell.
Sookey: Susan Lawson-Reynolds.
Lacey: Guy Burgess.
Servant Brightie: Richard Blackwood.
Servant Nanny: Claudia Cadette.
Ensemble: Yvonne Gidden.
Children: Vienna Best, Nina Cassells, Leah Champagnie, Corrigan Griffith, Bernice Leigh, Solana Lord-Baptiste, Zach Morris, Ben Mushumani, Rebecca Sanneh, Siann Williams.
Director: Debbie Allen.
Designer: Morgan Large.
Lighting: David Holmes.
Sound: Richard Brooker.
Composer: Andrew “Tex” Allen.
Costume: Fay Fullerton.
Assistant director: Anthony Ekundayo Lennon.
2009-12-06 00:10:01