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 | | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. by Tennessee Williams ISBN-10: 9780822201892 ISBN-10: 0-8222-0189-5 ISBN-13: 9780822201892 ISBN-13: 978-0-8222-0189-2 Paperback 1958-06 Dramatists Play Service Inc Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning play has captured both stage and film audiences since its debut in 1954. One of his best-loved and most famous plays, it exposes the lies plaguing the family of a wealthy Southern planter of humble origins. | ||
Reviews | ||
Guilt, Frustration, and Greed Like the other great American playwright Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams was not afraid of creating controversy through his work. Touching on themes of money, social status, and sexuality, Williams presents the dark side of each character. While it is hard to like any character, it is difficult not to be compelled by them. Brick Pollitt is the favored son. Failing to recover from the death of his best friend and fight the demons that come with booze, he has no desire to gain the good graces of his dying father and inherit his wealth. His brother Gooper and his wife Mae, that "monster of fertility", are engaged in a competition for the father's favor. But even nearing a sixth child, they can not measure up to Brick. The climax comes as Big Daddy and Brick attempt to reach the resolution that Brick has no desire to attain. Accusations of homosexuality and an inability to let go of his days as an athlete are among the reasons that Big Daddy suggests for Brick's inability to settle down and expand his family. Yet the resolution is not Brick's choice. The explosion at the end is hardly as stinging as the process of getting to the conclusion. The ultimate question is whether the cat (Margaret) will choose to stay on the hot tin roof or seek refuge. The fast paced drama moves at an unflinching pace that will make readers anticipate the direction of each page. It may be difficult for some readers to disengage from this drama. | ||
Genius! I believe Tennesee Williams is the most versatile modern playwright who truly exemplifies the dysfuctionality of family morals. The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof are indeed his masterpieces. I found Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to be my most favorite. The characters were memorable (who can forget Margaret "aka Maggie The Cat," Brick, Big Daddy, and Big Mama?) and the lines truly classic ("What's the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can..."). Also, just like Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof touched upon subjects that were controversial then and just as controversial now (homosexuality, child molestation, prostitution, etc.), which makes Tenesee William's works highly relevent. His plays age well with time. Not to mention that there have also been INCREDIBLE movie adaptations of all of his famous plays. After you read Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, or Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, watch the movie as well. There is no other modern playwright (except Oscar Wild and Anthony Wilson)whose plays will truly have a place in my heart for years to come. | ||
The Usual Obligatory Hysteria From Tennessee Williams!!! This play is the usual extreme histrionics that I have come to expect from Tennessee Williams. In this book set on a Southern Plantation we have the obligatory hysterical woman, an alcoholic and a homophobe. After a while one cannot help but get the impression that Mr. William's works all consisted of the same stock, cardboard characters and he only changed the settings and their names.I do give this book 5 stars because I have always liked Elizabeth Taylor who starred in the movie of this play although she is in fact a Real Life Serial Monogamist as the Sociologist would refer to her . | ||
"Skipper Is Dead But I'm Alive! Maggie The Cat Is Alive!" Only Williams could have gotten away with naming his hero "Brick," as names were always his strong suit. He found comfort in names, and a wild exotic beauty, and even in his last faltering years was usually able to pull a final name out of his hat, something perfect. I remember seeing CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF on stage, with Elizabeth Ashley, some time before I read the play, so naturally my experience of the text is colored by Ashley's sizzling interpretation of Maggie the Cat, all hisses and feral screams. She was so strong I can barely remember who played Brick or Big Daddy in that production. I think it was Keir Dullea from DAVID AND LISA. Maybe Big Daddy was the man from the MUNSTERS TV show. What we, the audience, cared about was if Maggie was going to get her wway and triumph over all the mendacity and the "no neck monsters" that were swarming the plantation. Maggie gets angry, but mostly we value her for her tenderness. Even when she knows her husband has lost his heart over a long-gone teammate, and that he's probably gay, she never gives up the ship. She knows that without her in his corner 100 per cent, he'll give up, drown in his own sorrows. He needs her to kick his ass and bring him back to the land of the awake. She wasn't going to be an enabler, she would always discourage him from drinking from the time he got up in the morning till he passed out at night, his crutches tangled up in his boxer shorts. For Brick, drinking is a way out of his tortured memories of Skipper, the boy he loved in high school and college. Taking a drink is "like a switch, clickin' off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on and all of a sudden, there's peace." Secretly the family has a plan to ship his butt off to Rainbow Hill, sort of a Betty Ford Clinic without the mercy. We love Maggie trying to semaphor the truth into his thick skull by screaming, "Skipper is dead but I'm alive! Maggie the Cat is alive!" | ||
I love this play Tennessee Williams was a genius. This play runs the full spectrum of human emotion-desire, frustration, depression, denial, grief, longing,need, inadequacy. Its all laid right out in shocking bursts of deep naked revelation. This is my favorite play of all time. | ||