Hot off two acclaimed productions of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke and A Streetcar Named Desire, Rebecca Frecknall and the Almeida Theatre are reunited once more in her new staging of three-act play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But can she make it a hat trick?
One of Williams’s most famous plays — and reportedly his favourite — Cat on a Hot Tin Roof tackles family dysfunction, falsehoods, and the fear of death. Gathering for patriarch Big Daddy’s (Lennie James) 65th birthday, alcoholic son Brick (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and rags-to-riches wife Maggie (Daisy Edgar-Jones) confront their crumbling relationship amid a web of lies about Big Daddy’s ailing health. Having undergone recent tests, Big Daddy and Big Mama (Clare Burt) have been told he’s in the clear. It’s only his children who know the truth: he’s dying of cancer, and future ownership of his huge estate in the American South is at stake — if they play their cards right.
One thing you’ll notice off the bat in Frecknall’s production is a constant state of freakish unease, which thrums through everything from the eerie set and sound design (think unnerving ticking and whistling) to the physicality of the performers, Edgar-Jones’s slinky Maggie in particular.
For a play that’s heavily driven by denial and delusion, the production’s uncanny quality serves Williams’s often ambiguous script well. Much is left open to interpretation through the dialogue, and Frecknall dares us to make up our own minds rather than spoon-feeding what she wants us to believe.
Titular ‘cat’ Maggie is brought sumptuously to life by a lithe Edgar-Jones. She’s at once charmingly enigmatic and wincingly desperate, and Edgar-Jones gives us transfixing glimpses of each fragment of Maggie’s persona as she fights to regain Brick’s love — and secure their financial stability by winning over Big Daddy.
While Maggie is eager to please, Ben-Adir’s Brick shows not a morsel of interest in impressing his family, more committed to drinking enough booze to activate the ‘click’ in his drunken brain that offers him some peace.
Brick is distant and despondent in Act One, but we see him seethe in Act Two while battling with Big Daddy about their fraught relationship and his friendship with Skipper, who died by suicide. This is where Ben-Adir really gets to shine, as we see his drunken security blanket rip to unveil the rage that’s been simmering away beneath.
Seb Carrington is billed as playing ‘The Pianist’ in the programme, but it feels safe to assume that his silent, leering presence on stage throughout the action — frequently sat playing the piano, but sometimes slumped in a corner — is a manifestation of Skipper’s unshakeable, harrowing impact on Brick’s psyche.
With much of the dramatic tension erupting in Act Two — which ends with a strikingly haunting depiction of the birthday party’s firework display — Act Three occasionally stumbles. Big Mama’s discovery of Big Daddy’s true test results offers another emotional peak, but the following action begins to circle in on itself somewhat.
There’s no shying away from the fact that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a dense watch at a lengthy three hours (including one interval and one short pause), and the production begins to lose its steam towards the end. But right at that moment, Edgar-Jones injects a final, fatal dose of delusion that brings the show to an excellent conclusion.
Playing until 1st February 2025, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Almeida Theatre
Reviewer: Olivia Cox
Reviewed: 18th December 2024
North West End UK Rating: