The scene between Big Daddy and Brick in Act 2 of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a fine example of the many ways a playwright can imply large issues as he or she develops the concerns of the characters in the play. Relations between fathers and sons are obvious in Cat, how they develop, how they have shaped the characters. This brings in also the culture of the American South, what it does to someone like Brick. Or the culture of the whole of the USA. Wealth and poverty, how they happen, what they mean. The legal system and what it does to people; I’m sorry , but I always feel a little bad for Gooper, who doesn’t really deserve the second-class deal he will eventually get.

This scene also is dramatically tight. Big Daddy may wander sometimes, but he’s always working on the problem named Brick. Can he leave the place to him? Not as he is now. How does he change Brick, heal him, find the root of his problems? 

At the Festival production of the play, I was admiring the performance of Peter Mayer as Big Daddy, noting his skillful use of the actor’s techniques to achieve his Big Daddy. But then I stopped seeing a skillful performance. I just saw Big Daddy. Occasionally this will happen in the theatre, that an actor will so identify with a role that he or she ceases to exist as a skillful performer and becomes the character. So it is with Peter Mayer and Big Daddy. 

Something like this does happen with every actor in the production, to a greater or lesser degree. Brian Slaten faces the challenge of playing Brick, whose goal is not to exist, or at least not to show any evidence of existence. He does it well. We see and know that Brick needs something — “the click,” certainly — but also something more, some way to get rid of the need for the click. So we see that Brick has an alertness about him. He expects something more but has no idea what it is or where to find it. Slaten can pull off this combination of absence and presence.

Kiah McKirnan’s Maggie is all presence. And need. She must have Brick. She is splendid in her efforts, and you hurt each time she fails.

Big Mama shares Maggie’s need for her husband. Kari Ely manages to preserve some of Big Mama’s dignity, even as she cries out her need. Roxanne Wellington’s Mae, or “Sister Woman,” Gooper’s wife, doesn’t worry about her dignity. She’s here to support her husband’s claim to the land that is rightfully his, and she uses every ingratiating trick she can come up with, she and her “no-neck monsters,” to win her battles. Earl Dean White’s Gooper is another “Mr. Cellophane,” though still struggling. Kate Kappel, Tatum Wilson, and Cooper Schussele serenade Big Daddy as three of the No-Neck Monsters.

I am not quite sure what to make of the work of J. Samuel Davis. He is, as always, a master of his craft. According to the program, he plays three roles: The Writer, Doc Baugh, and Rev. Tooker. I assume it was the decision of the play’s director, Michael Wilson, whose work here I otherwise admired, to have Davis open the play as, I assume, The Writer, reciting the “Notes for the Designer” with which Williams’ prefaces the printed script. Aa Davis describes the set in Williams’ words, the parts of James Wolk’s design for the southern plantation’s bedroom move into place. It was a little confusing, and I’m not sure what the point is. So too with Davis’ being asked to play both the Rev. Tooker and Doc Baugh in the last act. Again, I don’t know why, and again it’s a little confusing.

I think Wolk’s set does well what Williams asks of it. Matt McCarthy’s lighting touches the set with a softness as the day’s light fades. Teresa Doggett designed the costumes with her usual care, with wigs by Will Vicari of The Wig Associates. Phillip Evans designed the sound, Mikhail Lynn selected props, Jack Kalan choreographed fights, Daniel Black was the Technical Director, Ethan Dudenhoeffer the Production Manager, Tracy Holliway-Wiggins the Production Stage Manager, and Carrie Houk is the Producer. 

The Tennessee Williams Festival is giving us an unusually fine production of one of the playwright’s best plays.

—Bob Wilcox

Photo by Suzy Gorman
From the left, Kiah McKirnan as Maggie and Brian Slaten as Brick,