Review 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
An incomplete history of Cat on a Hot Can Roof: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
True cat on a Hot Tin Roof—Tennessee Williams' sultry southern storm of a play about greed, deceit, self-mirage, sexual desire and repression, homophobia, sexism, and the looming specter of death—has had a curious life. Indeed, you could fence that True cathas actually had 3 different lives since Williams dreamt it upward in the early on 1950s: Williams' original text (initially buried but later revived), Elia Kazan'due south original Broadway production (which won Williams the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955), and the Paul Newman- and Elizabeth Taylor-starring pic adaptation (which, despite its Hays Lawmaking neutering, was peradventure the most sexually-charged mainstream American film of the 1950s and an Oscar-nominated phenomenon dorsum in 1958). If you're a Tennessee Williams fan (and how could you non be), chances are you lot've seen the film and/or some version of the original text (which Williams tinkered with and restored for the kickoff Broadway revival in 1974, and which has been used for most revivals since).
Since this year marks the 65thanniversary of the play'southward Broadway premiere, I idea I'd rail downward some fun, and non-so-fun, facts about the many incarnations of Williams' masterpiece.
Just get-go things first, a brief recap of the story:
Set in the Mississippi plantation habitation of Big Daddy Pollit, a domineering cotton tycoon and patriarch of a viperous family unit in turmoil, on the dual occasion of his 65thbirthday and (alleged) clean bill of health, Cat on a Hot Tin can Rooffocuses on the tempestuous relationship betwixt his grieving, alcoholic, probably closeted former star athlete son, Brick, and Brick'south fiery, outspoken, unapologetically sexual wife, "Maggie the Cat"; his scheming elder son and daughter-in-law and their weaponized brood of "no-cervix monsters"; and the terminal cancer diagnosis of which all in the Pollit clan but Big Daddy and Big Mama have been made aware.
At present, on to the Fun and Not-So-Fun Facts:
Not-And then-Fun Fact #one:Despite having already conquered Broadway with The Glass Menagerie (1944) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), past 1955 Williams' reputation had been dented by the failure of his most recent play, Camino Real, and the playwright was desperate for another win. Kazan, on the other hand, was coming off the runaway success of On the Waterfront (which won eight Oscars in 1954, including Best Motion picture and All-time Manager for Kazan). Kazan wanted a reluctant Williams to change the third human action to one in which Maggie was shown more sympathetically, the dying Big Daddy reappeared, and Brick underwent some class of moral awakening. As Williams' (pretty humbling) note on the text indicates, it was the managing director'southward vision that ultimately won out.
Information technology was only the third of these suggestions that I embraced wholeheartedly from the outset, because it so happened that Maggie the Cat had become steadily more charming to me as I worked on her characterization. I didn't want Big Daddy to reappear in Human activity Three and I felt that the moral paralysis of Brick was a root affair in his tragedy, and to testify a dramatic progression would obscure the meaning of that tragedy in him and because I don't believe that a chat, however revelatory, ever effects so firsthand a change in the heart or even carry of a person in Brick'due south state of spiritual busted.
All the same, I wanted Kazan to straight the play, and though these suggestions were non made in the form of an ultimatum, I was fearful that I would lose his interest if I didn't re-examine the script from his point of view. I did. And yous will discover included in this published script the new tertiary act that resulted from his creative influence on the play. The reception of the playing-script has more than justified, in my stance, the adjustments fabricated to that influence. A failure reaches fewer people, and touches fewer, than does a play that succeeds.
Fun Fact #1: Williams' original character descriptions and stage directions are literary gems in and of themselves:
Not-So-Fun Fact #2:In March 1958, during the start calendar week of shooting the Richard Brooks-directed picture adaptation, Elizabeth Taylor contracted a virus, causing her to cancel plans to wing to New York with her then-married man, the producer Mike Todd. Todd'due south airplane crashed, killing everyone on board.
Fun Fact #2:Both Tennessee Williams and Paul Newman were incensed by the film'southward screenplay, which removed almost all of the play'south homosexual themes and revised the third act section to include a lengthy scene of reconciliation between Brick and Big Daddy. Allegedly, Williams and so disliked the toned-downwards film adaptation of his what he considered to be his greatest play that he showed up at a movie theater and told people in the queue, "This picture will set up the manufacture dorsum l years. Go home!"
Fun Fact #3:The iconic poster art for the flick was created by American realist artist, and giant of the 1950s Hollywood monster movie affiche game, Reynold Brown.
Not-And so-Fun Fact #three:In a 1976 goggle box version of the play, Brick and Maggie were played by the existent-life married man and married woman team of Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood…😬
Fun Fact #four:On stage and screen, Jessica Lange, Ashley Judd, Kathleen Turner, Mary Stuart Masterson, Anika Noni Rose, and Scarlett Johansson have all played Maggie; Tommy Lee Jones, Ian Charleson, Brendan Fraser, Jason Patric, Terrence Howard, and Benjamin Walker have all played Brick; and Burl Ives, John Carradine, Ned Beatty, James Earl Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Rip Torn, and Laurence Olivier have all played Big Daddy.
Source: https://lithub.com/an-incomplete-history-of-cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
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