‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ transcends racial boundaries

This is the third Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in less than two decades. Kathleen Turner and Charles Durning starred in a 1990 production, and Ashley Judd, Jason Patric and Ned Beattie headlined in the show in 2003. The main draw and new twist of director Debbie Allen’s version is its all-African-American cast of stage and screen heavyweights: Oscar nominee Terrence Howard as Brick; the venerable, two-time Tony-winner James Earl Jones as Big Daddy; and Tony-winner and TV veteran Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama. They are all big names, but Jones gives the best performance. The other actor who truly shines here is Anika Noni Rose (who won a Tony for “Caroline, or Change” and much acclaim for her role in the Hollywood adaptation of “Dreamgirls”) in the female lead of Margaret (or “Maggie the Cat,” as she’s often called in the play). Rose, as the childless Maggie, is pint-sized dynamite, dripping with the smoldering sensuality and emotional and sexual frustration required for the role.

Fans of the 1958 film may have the image of Elizabeth Taylor playing Maggie—while sporting that iconic slip and tight white dress—forever burned in their minds. Rose certainly has Elizabeth Taylor’s same drop-dead gorgeous looks, giving Maggie such an imposing presence in act one. Whether she’s complaining about her brother-in-law’s annoying kids (those famous “no-neck monsters” running around the house), or begging desperately for intimate contact with her husband, Rose’s interpretation gives a new, modern breath of life to this Maggie the Cat. She’s much more sensual than Ashley Judd and Kathleen Turner ever were, and adds nice touches like striking numerous sexy poses. She delivers Williams’s poetic dialogue with aplomb, too, but sometimes says her lines with such rapid-fire fervor that it’s hard to understand what she’s saying.

Terrence Howard, as her alcoholic husband and former football hero Brick, is weak indeed. Granted, there will probably never be a Brick like the one Paul Newman, at his most handsome and brooding, played in the film opposite Elizabeth Taylor, but Howard simply doesn’t deliver. He drinks, throws his crutches in frustration at Maggie and tries to ignore her, but the performance is so uneven compared to Rose’s because he delivers his lines so slowly, almost by rote, as if he’s Brick under the influence of Valium, not liquor.

Anyone familiar with this classic knows the basic plotline: the wealthy Pollitt clan has gathered at the family plantation to celebrate Big Daddy’s 65th birthday, but everyone except Big Daddy and Big Mama know that this will be the patriarch’s final birthday because Brick, his lawyer brother Gooper (Giancarlo Esposito) and pregnant, smart-mouthed wife Mae (Lisa Arrindell Anderson) don’t want to spoil the celebration by letting their parents know that the father’s recent biopsy for colon cancer came back positive.

“Cat” is Williams’s undeniable masterpiece, as painstakingly structured and poetic as any tragedy by Shakespeare and Chekhov. Williams often portrayed the injustices of racial discrimination in his Southern-themed dramas, and one knows he would probably be thrilled knowing that his best play would one day feature an African-American cast. But the late playwright would likely turn over in his grave seeing his magnum opus misguided by Debbie Allen’s unfocused direction. Allen seems incapable of getting this stellar cast to perform together as a cohesive unit. Sure, they cry and scream in all the right places, but the scenes lack the dramaturgical fireworks present in previous revivals. James Earl Jones, with his trademark baritone voice, certainly convinces as the foul-mouthed but socially tolerant plantation owner who’s dying of colon cancer, and in the scenes with Brick, Jones often overshadows Terrence Howard, who—just like in his scenes with Maggie—has little chemistry with his co-star.

As Big Mama, Phylicia Rashad, made up and costumed to look frumpy, has the histrionics of her character down well, but she seems like she’s doing a caricature of a Southern matron. Her performance, as the high-strung, doting wife and mother, is simply strained and unnatural.

The most glaring flaw with this production is the fact that some scenes often come across as humorous, and again Allen’s tepid direction is to blame. Linda Arrindell Anderson, as the busybody sister-in-law Mae, is horribly miscast because she makes exaggerated facial expressions that seem like she’s hamming it up for comic effect. Other times, characters deliver serious lines with a beat, as if they are on a TV sitcom, and that’s totally unacceptable in a serious drama. When the actors do deliver the lines appropriately, they are often too shrill, making it impossible to hear Williams’s eloquent dialogue.

Most annoying is a saxophone player that comes up on stage to play at the beginning of two of the three acts, and one wonders what Debbie Allen was thinking by adding this inane touch. “Cat,” unlike “A Streetcar Named Desire,” is not set in New Orleans, after all. The only remarkable thing Allen has done for this revival is moving the story (originally produced in 1955) to a 21st century setting so that race is not an issue. There have been minor adjustments to the script to make a family of African-American Mississippians on a plantation plausible since the original manuscript contained a now-offensive stage direction for “Negro” servants. This is a play that transcends racial and ethnic boundaries because “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” even more than half a century after it was written, is not the least bit dated. Its themes about family dysfunction, lies, closeted homosexuality, alcoholism, and greed are still topical today.