Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Overview

When you think Tennessee Williams, you usually think steamy southern towns and tragically romantic, sweeping plantations upon whose porches wasted women have their nervous breakdowns. What you don't automatically think of are rainbow streamers. But Simon Stone's production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Belvoir is a reinvented sort, and its set — a revolving turntable bisected by a dense curtain of the party-supply staple — wants to remind us that we're here under the pretence of celebration.

It's the 50th birthday of family patriarch Big Daddy (Marshall Napier). He's also dying of cancer and everyone knows it but him and his overprotective, loving, stickybeaky wife, Big Mama (Lynette Curran). The inheritance of their grand plantation is, therefore, a matter on everyone else's minds.

Maggie (Jacqueline McKenzie) believes it's the right of her husband, Big Daddy's favourite son, Brick (Ewen Leslie), and that it will put their faltering relationship back on track. Ageing football hero Brick is in the depths of alcoholism, self-flagellation and denial of his sexuality and cannot want for a thing like land ownership. Brick's rather square brother Gooper (Alan Dukes) thinks it would be best left to him, and his wife, Mae (Rebecca Massey), keeps exploiting their brood of six children to win the favour of their grandparents. Sadly it's Maggie who's most affected by the kids' parading, as what she really wants is a child, something she has no chance of getting as long as her husband despises her.

This Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is part of a raft of productions that take classic texts and transport them to the unspecific contemporary, a place where accents are Australian but other textual references to place remain foreign. It's a legitimate approach, especially given how often audiences recoil from off accents. The aim is to find and communicate the heart of the play, and it's worked most successfully in The Wild Duck and Strange Interlude (both Stone's work).

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a (literally and metaphorically) colourful production with swags of charm, but unfortunately, it doesn't quite present us with the raw, beating heart it was searching for. There seem to be pieces missing in conceptualising how (or whether) this story fits into a modern world. As it is, it's hard to understand the root of some of the characters' anger and repression.

The actors, too, are a bit discordant. McKenzie might just be too adorable for the role of Maggie, coming across quite flatly sweet, flighty and garrulous — more bird than titular cat. The usually fabulous Leslie is good, but his Brick just seems morose, without that seething edge to make you think his depression matters to the outcome of things. Napier stepped into his key role at the last moment to replace an ill Anthony Phelan and had to keep his script on hand at opening, but a few nights on, when we finally made it along, his Big Daddy is commanding. Sandalled and Hawaiian-shirted, vociferous yet nuanced, he almost has a Hunter S. Thompson vibe, which is, of course, immensely watchable.

As for that streamer-curtained set, it might have been better in theory than practice. While it creates a multifaceted entrance for the actors, it's also wafty and tangly and all up a distraction.

This might sound like a litany of errors, but nevertheless Cat on a Hat Tin Roof is an entertaining and clever production. The story's beautiful tragedy is in the longing and lack of fulfilment evinced in Brick and Maggie, and it cuts through — just not to the depths it was aiming for.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof moves to the Theatre Royal from April 10-21.