Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Debbie Allen
Synopsis:
Hypocrisy, greed, and secret passions threaten to tear apart a wealthy but dysfunctional Mississippi family in Williams' stunning American masterpiece. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof searingly portrays the larger-than-life characters of Maggie "the Cat," her alcoholic husband, Brick, and the dominating family patriarch, Big Daddy.
NEW YORK TIMES:
"The resulting atmosphere is festive, for sure, and the show is never boring. But too often it’s without focus."
Read the whole review HERE.
NEW YORK POST:
"I've seen smoother stagings of the play, but this one is well worth seeing. It has satisfying power and little or any "mendacity.""
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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:
"Allen's all-black cast works fine as a concept, but her nearly three-hour production is hit-and-miss. It doesn't deepen Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize winner, which is filled with sex, lies and Delta depravity. Those ingredients make for a show that can bubble over and boil. This one mostly just simmers."
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THEATERMANIA:
"As for the all-African-American casting, the only pertinent comment is that it turns out to be an incidental factor in this powerful revival of Williams' hot attack on the greed and mendacity affecting too many family units every day and everywhere. "
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VARIETY:
"But the venture has come together as a sexy, starry entertainment, its artistic shortcomings likely to be overshadowed by its commercial strength. While Debbie Allen's inexperience as a director shows in pedestrian physical staging with a tendency toward heavy-handedness, she lucks out where it most matters -- with her powerhouse cast."
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TIME OUT NY:
" The cast understands the hot, repressed, bluesy-jazz world of Williams as well as any ensemble you could imagine. In so intensely inhabiting the passions, humor and politics of the 1955 drama, these actors have rediscovered it for themselves and for us. The black Cat is truer Williams than we have seen in some time. "
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NEWSDAY:
"The physical production is not the best looking "Cat" on Broadway in recent decades. Despite its conventional sets and hokey lighting effects, Debbie Allen has directed a shimmering ensemble that honors America's great poet of bruised humanity."
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AM NY :
"To be frank, Debbie Allen's staging is terrible. Just plain awful and amateurish. The production is just poorly executed. So, where does this leave pros like James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad? Their wasted talent goes down the toilet, which is where this revival belongs."
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NEW YORK SUN:
"Indeed, from a racial perspective, the most interesting twist in Ms. Allen's fascinating-despite-itself revival of Tennessee Williams's 1955 Southern potboiler is that the servants are all several shades lighter-skinned than the bibulous, avaricious, and (of course) mendacious clan for whom they work. With a production as lopsided and often wrongheaded as this, one has time to notice this sort of thing."
Read the whole review HERE.
NY1:
""Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" is no comedy, but the unexpected laughter makes one realize the delicate dynamics required in staging a 53-year-old play for a modern audience. Whether it's cultural miscues or artistic blunder, "Cat" doesn't stand up the way it used to. "
Read the whole review HERE.
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