Tennessee Williams - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
BBC Radio 3: Drama On 3 Broadcast: Sunday 16th March 2008 @ 8:00 p.m.
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" tells the story of a wealthy Southern family in crisis, in which hypocrisy, greed and secret passions threaten to tear apart the dysfunctional Mississippi family. The play portrays the larger-than-life characters of Maggie "the Cat," her alcoholic husband, Brick, and the dominating family patriarch, Big Daddy. A hot-house of corruption and lies, the drama is played out against a backdrop of rampant Fifties Cold War anti-Communism, white domination, racial segregation and intense homophobia. This new production stays faithful to Williams's rarely performed original version. When the drama premièred on Broadway in 1955, the director, Elia Kazan, asked Williams to rewrite the third act – which he did. But the playwright never abandoned his first version, requesting that the audience should be able to judge his original intentions.
With Joss Ackland [Big Daddy], Gemma Jones [Big Mama], Elizabeth McGovern [Maggie (Margaret)], Marcus D'Amico [Brick], Alison Steadman [Mae], Clive Carter [Gooper], Kenneth Jay [Dr Baugh], Ben Onwukwe [Lacey], Roy Dotrice [The Reverend Tooker], and Polly Dartford, Christopher Earley, Zara Mandel, Tristan Pegg [The Children]. The original music is composed by Jon Nicholls. Directed by Andy Jordan. Produced by Richard Bannerman and Neil Gardner. 120 min.
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