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Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.20.2008
Tennessee Williams wrote several great plays, but he was never coy about which was his favorite.
He was always partial to "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," which he wrote in 1954 and revised more than once until he got to the version he felt most expressed what he wanted to say about the lies we learn to live with and the truths too often buried for no good reason.
The master playwright's 1974 revision, beautifully realized by Arizona Repertory Theatre, has more four-letter words and a more explicit rendering of the sexual dynamics than the movie version starring Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor.
ART, the professional training company at the University of Arizona's School of Theatre Arts, delivers this intense Southern-fried drama with supreme assurance. Under the direction of Brent Gibbs, the grand old play crackles with fresh electricity and ferocious wit.
The play unfolds on a single bumpy evening in Big Daddy's stately mansion, where duplicity and regret hang in the air like Mississippi humidity.
It's Big Daddy's 65th birthday, perhaps his last, and the mood is less than celebratory, especially in the upstairs bedroom where all of the action takes place. The household's golden boy, Brick, is a former athlete who has a sudden attraction to liquor and nothing else. He ignores his sexy wife, Maggie, a force of nature who refuses to give up on him.
Maggie, who says she feels like a cat on a hot tin roof, is played with burning authenticity by Charlotte Bernhardt, an actress who rarely strikes a false note. Scott Reynolds, in the difficult role of Brick, captures the wounded detachment of a man who knows he's not as noble as everyone seems to think he is.
His torment has something to do with his best friend Skipper, now dead, a fellow athlete who learned the hard way that his love for Brick dared not speak its name.
The mystery behind Brick's emotional turmoil, which is more complicated than grief, drives the play forward. Meanwhile, Big Daddy's other son, Gooper (Jeremy Salim), is hoping against hope that the plantation won't be turned over to Brick once the old man dies.
Gooper's sneaky wife, Mae (a priceless Julie Garrison), does all she can to butter up Big Daddy while throwing shade in Maggie's direction. The amusing interplay between Mae and Maggie is handled with pitch-perfect flair.
The denial that seeps into the mansion's every crevice is embodied by Cynthia Meier as the lavishly deluded matriarch, while Roberto Guajardo's hard-edged portrayal of mean, vulgar Big Daddy feels just right. Underneath all the hot air is a man yearning to understand what his son is going through.
The lead actors bring utter truthfulness to the play's poetic exploration of lies. And the top-notch production design lends added credibility (sets by Sally Day, lighting by Jeff Warburton, sound by Carson Scott and costumes by Patrick Holt).
Arizona Repertory Theatre, a company with an enviable track record, has met the challenges of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in fine, scrappy fashion.
● Contact M. Scot Skinner at skinner@azstarnet.com or 573-4119.
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