Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Tennessee William’s 1955 hot sizzling Pulitzer Prize play Cat On A Hot Tin Roof as performed by The Vintage Theatre at Buntport falls short of its emotional smoldering reputation that digs deep into the lives of an over-the-top dysfunctional Southern Family consumed by their own limited universe.

Addison Parker plays Brick and Lisa Decaro plays Maggie in Tennessee William’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Considering “Cat” is the first full-length play Vintage Theatre tackled, it would have behooved them to choose a less complicated emotional rampage as their first time out of the gate. Talent they have. There is absolutely no question as considering their award-winning entry Hello Out There in the Colorado Theatre Festival last year.

It must be taken into consideration Cat’s debut on opening night suffered from a severe lack of tech rehearsals due to Buntport’s on-going schedule. At the beginning of Act III, the light board decided to take the rest of the night off, resulting in the play’s climax being performed with only the house lights. Ironically, the cast in Act III began to come out of their uptight all too stiff shell revealing the characters for who they really were.

Directed by Artistic Director Craig Bond, the production points toward the talent he has surrounded himself with. In spite of the difficulties surrounding the play, strong indicators point toward the cast growing into the characterizations as it moves deeper into the run.

The main problem with the production on opening night was the uptight stiffness with which the actors met their characters. As it stood, the name of the play could well have been “Cat On A Plexiglas Roof.” This play has to sizzle with oozing frustrated sexuality by Maggie the Cat, and without that there is no hot tin roof. The beautiful actress, Lisa Decaro, takes on Maggie’s lines, but her sharp lines, sharp moves, and static stances prohibit Maggie’s hot sexual slithering from filling the stage.

The uptightness works well for two characters: Brick, Maggie’s emotionally shut-down husband wonderfully played by Addison Parker, and Sister Woman, Mae, Brick’s annoyingly obnoxious pregnant sister stunningly played by Linda Williams.

With confusion whirling in his head insulating himself from Maggie’s sharp-clawed tongue and oily advances, Parker provides Brick the aloof cold distance he needs. Williams’ bubbling forced enthusiasm surrounds Mae, pregnant with her sixth child, with the superficial gushiness that is hers to claim in wanting to influence Big Daddy’s will.

A myth runs throughout some theatre companies equating yelling with emotion. The louder one yells on stage the more frustration, anger, confusion supposedly rolls off the stage. Yelling only signifies yelling. Both Big Daddy (Joseph C. Wilson) and Big Mama (Peggy Miller) lean toward yelling rather than express what is really going on inside both of them. Wilson and Miller contain moments that definitely point in the right direction revealing confusion and anger through their vulnerabilities, but their physical stiff uncertainties keep them from fully embracing the characters. Always amazing how stiff arms that don’t quite know what to do keeps actors and characters from completely melding with each other.

The costumes designed by Jean Rental for the most part fit the characters, with the exception of Maggie who in a couple of outfits appeared as a suburban housewife pretending to live a life of luxury. Her dresses needed to reflect the come hither sexuality she so desperately wanted to attract Brick and to lay jealous claim onto everyone else with her righteous curves, but the dress she especially wears for the party screamed hide the curves.

When the actors relax allowing the characters to take over, this production of Cat will regain its tin roof status ending the run on a high note.

It’s Big Daddy’s 60th Birthday Party celebration and the family has gathered at the plantation home in the Mississippi Delta. Everyone thinks and wants to believe Big Daddy has cancer, with the exception of Big Mama and Big Daddy. His coveted assets brings out the cat fighting, the dirt digging, the needling, the arrogant compiled superiority, along with the false belief that if one stomps the other into the dirt long enough and hard enough they will rise to the top as the cream de la cream. In actuality, the truth is that it never works.

Mae’s obnoxious “no neck” children as Maggie refers to them, are adorable with Danielle Samler and Maria Cordova as Dixie, Maria Ciovanetti and Donavan Lee as Trixie, Campbell Hart as Buster, Lily Mattingly and Marisa Ann Rincon as Polly. It would be helpful to everyone if when there is double casting, the program would indicate what nights each one performs.

On opening night, the children lived up to their obnoxious “no-neck” reputation except in between their obnoxious antics there appeared to be minute hesitation gaps calling for smooth transitions. Some antics came to an immediate halt with the characters giving way to the actors pondering what to do next. The moments didn’t last long, but they were present. Mae’s insistence that her “darling” children are perfect in every way brings forth appropriate laughter.

The set designed by Nicholas Kargel sets the action in Brick and Maggie’s bed-sitting room giving the illusion of the outside gallery wrapping itself around the room. Although nicely appointed, it doesn’t quite give the impression of elegance one would expect in Big Daddy’s plantation home.

The three additional members of the cast Dr. Baugh (Ted Bishop), Gooper (David Harms), and Rev. Tooker (Nick Ortiz-Trammel) tend to take a back seat to the more demanding characters without being given much opportunity to try their wings. Ortiz-Trammel gives the minister a stereotypical bent of a namby pamby out of place man-of-the-cloth feigning shock at discovering information he would rather not have or hearing words he would rather not here. Forcing a comedic edge where a comedic edge does not belong. Harms carries some wonderful lines with Gooper that tend to get lost in the shuffle for attention between Maggie and Mae. All three actors have the wherewithal to project a stronger image than what came across on opening night.

Vintage Theatre shows great promise in growing into a competitive theatre, and the production company for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, in spite of everything, promises to loosen the reins on the characters, turn up the heat and sizzle with a smoldering sexuality and twisted emotion of fear, anxiety, and topsy turvy confusion before the end of the run. Should you see it? Yes, by all means.