“Are you a Tennessee Williams person?” I heard someone ask as the audience filed into The Grandel for the opening night of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the main stage production of the 9th Annual Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis. The answer, in this case, doesn’t matter much. Whether you’re a devoted fan or dipping a toe into the prolific playwright’s work for the very first time, Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is an easy sell.
The three-act play won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1955, and Williams called it a favorite among his works. The story was perhaps most famously brought to life by Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Burl Ives in the 1958 Hollywood adaptation, which was nominated for six Academy Awards.
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At The Grandel, the family melodrama kicks off with an introduction from The Writer—played, along with a couple other parts, by J. Samuel Davis—who drew gasps as he appeared, dripping with style and personality, from the back of the theater. With an easy charm and a conspiratorial glint in his eye, he guides the audience toward his vision—the sweeping plantation of a cotton magnate, the well-appointed bedroom of a young couple, the ghostly portrait of a pair of “confirmed bachelors” hanging above the double mattress.
From there, it’s off to the races. No one writes monologues quite like Tennessee Williams, and Kiah McKirnan gives each its due as Maggie, wife to the taciturn and whiskey-soaked Brick, played by Brian Slaten. Their relationship—sexless, fraught, haunted by something unspoken—mirrors another of the play’s central couples, Big Mama and Big Daddy, portrayed by Kari Ely and Peter Mayer, respectively.
These cold, hard men cling desperately to what they’ve lost—and what they’re still losing—while the women cling desperately to them, wanting so badly to love and be loved. Late in the play, Brick insists that “any true thing between two people is too rare to be normal.” Well, these tragic central relationships feel true as performed by McKirnan, Slaten, Mayer, and Ely, and that is, in fact, a rare thing.
The cast is rounded out by Eric Dean White and Roxanne Wellington as Gooper and Mae, our third couple and a pleasant pair of vultures waiting to swoop in. The couple’s children, played by young actors Kate Koppel, Tatum Wilson, and Cooper Scheessele, do an excellent job making it clear why the adults keep shooing them out of rooms. (The trio eats up their cloying rendition of “Skinnamarink,” earning one of few laughs in this dramatic tale.)
A few notes for attendees: Sitting to one side of the theater, I found myself straining to hear during some of the quieter moments. Those with less-than-perfect hearing may wish to find a central seat to help alleviate the issue, or inquire about accommodations. It’s also worth noting that there’s an important choice to be made—bathroom line or bar line—during the show’s single 10-minute intermission.
On the whole, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is an excellent addition to the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis’ long list of superior productions. Director Michael Wilson has put together a show that Williams could be proud of, and one worth seeing for both newcomers and longtime attendees.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is on stage at The Grandel (3610 Grandel) through August 18. Thursdays—Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets are available at the box office and via MetroTix.com.
