Review: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

The rotating stage at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre moves to the slow rhythmic climes of the Deep South. Maggie, played by Ntombizodwa Ndlovu, enters like she owns the place - and for the first half hour, she does. Regaling Brick (Bayo Gbadamosi) with her half-formed thoughts and remnants of gossip. Gossip, it so transpires, with which she has more than a passing relationship. Her partner, Brick, has little room for manoeuvre figuratively or literally (having recently broken his leg) and can do little but to lie around on bed and listen. It is better than risking the alternative: partying with his own family and the incessant brattish kids running hither and thither… that’s a hazard best avoided. So Maggie it is. And what she does, she does well: reconstructing the past so that wherever you are in the room it looks on all persons uncomfortably, in sole regard. Brick drinks. To forget. To soften the harsh realities of the southern air. To blot out any reminder of a life that may have been better lived.

For all that Maggie and Brick’s troubles are played out within the confines of their room, they might as well have played it out centre-stage for the privacy it actually yields. The in-the-round configuration of the Royal Exchange Theatre works exceptionally well here: capturing the claustrophobic void at the centre brought about by the circularly encroaching audience. A set of eyes per degree of glazed circumference against which the world cups its ears. There is no privacy and everyone wants to know two things: what’s going on in Maggie and Brick’s relationship …and what’s not going on in Maggie and Brick’s relationship.

So in turn we get: Mae (Danielle Henry) showing up and showing off her latest bump (her sixth) to the childless Maggie; Gooper (Daniel Ward) gathering up his wife, Mae, whilst virtuously extolling family wholesomeness; Big Mama (Jacqui Dubois) to relay updates on the latest health scares suffered by Big Daddy; and finally Big Daddy (Patrick Robinson) himself.

Big Daddy is a vaping entrepreneur who is seeking a successor. To all seeing-eyes that succession is clearly safest in the hands of the dull Gooper. He would solidify the empire if not exactly build on it (OK, there might be some contraction - but no bankruptcy as that is way too racy for Gooper). It is clear; however, that Big Daddy wants Brick to succeed him. No reason is required. Has there ever been a reason for a favourite that was, well, reasonable? This is a chink in the Tennessee Williams’ play: entrepreneurs tend not to leave dynasties, favourite or not, in the hands of liquor-soaked progeny. There’s a reason for their success and that is not one of them.

Roy Alexander Weise has done an admirable job in realisation. However, updating plays is always a hazardous task. The biggest modern-day issue being the existence of mobile phones - able to unravel any pre-digital plot upon contact. So, what price for present-day relevance? This near all-black cast are absolutely superb in conjuring Williams’ world. They mostly help us forget the ‘update ingredients’. Looked on as modern-day colour-blind casting, we can overcome the troublesome Deep South race issue…but then all external communication is via landline phones. So traces of 1950s seep through…but then Big Daddy vapes. It is all momentarily jarring. Which leads (spoiler alert) to the denouement between Big Daddy and Brick. An issue of sexual orientation amplified to this level lands precisely between the two eras we unexpectedly toggle: insufficiently voluble for a family in the 1950s; and over-wrought for a family in the 21st century. These are quibbles in an otherwise excellent production. And the three-hour duration aliases as something significantly less.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof played at The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester between 24th March - 29th April.