"You're a Live Cat, Maggie."

First off, I apologize for my almost three-month absence from my blog.  I would say I have been really busy, but when has that ever been an excuse?  I could say I haven't seen any shows, but as my father informed me, there is a lot more that all of you want to hear about.  So, it make it up to you, I will try to write two blogs in a very short period of time: first, my review of the new Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and then I'll go back in time and give a super fun account of my first New York City New Years Eve.

I'll make you sit through the intellectual stuff first :-)

"Living with someone you love can be lonelier- than living entirely alone!- if the one that y'love doesn't love you..."

This is my favorite line from Tennessee Williams' powerful masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.   It also serves excellently to demonstrate the overall theme of this play, as well as many of his other works.  For those of you not as familiar with Tennessee Williams, he is considered to be one of the greatest American playwrights. He was born in Mississippi, grew up in Saint Louis, and started his writing career as a young man in New Orleans.  Many of his greatest plays are distinctly Southern family tragedies, often dealing with the lies that human beings tell themselves in order to cope with their own failures.  He was fascinated with the quiet, very private disappointments of people whose lives never amount to what they expected, and in this way he creates what seem like epic tragedies onstage out of the quiet struggles that go on behind closed doors.  His most successful plays were written in the late 40's and 50's, although he continued to write until his death in 1983.

Although I have always loved A Streetcar Named Desire, it took me until college to really appreciate what is now my favorite Williams drama, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  While Streetcar is highly emotional and dramatic, Cat is subtle and realistic in a way that I'm not sure I was able to appreciate when I was in high school.  This story, while encompassing the whole of the main character's emotional life, takes place in the smallest, most invisible of worlds: in her a bedroom behind a locked door.  Or I should say somewhat locked, because people just can't seem to stop invading her privacy.

In Broadway's recent revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Rob Ashford, Scarlett Johansson portrays Maggie the Cat as desperate and unraveling, yet restrained.  Maggie, whose husband has been refusing to have to sleep with her for years, is too-often portrayed as overly sexual or needy.  Johansson, to her credit, was able to deliver such emotionally charged lines as "if I really believed you'd never sleep with me again I'd go to the kitchen, take out the biggest knife, and drive it into my heart," not as a neurotic, but as someone who has simply had this conversation over and over again.  Someone for whom this has become the routine.  Johansson's Maggie just said the words, and I believed her.  When this play first appeared, the idea that a woman could actually be sexually frustrated was, to say the least shocking.  Women do not need sexual intimacy... or so we'd like to think.  I am not convinced that this mentality has entirely changed, contributing to an interpretation of Maggie as ultra-seductive or even sex-addicted.  The reality is that Williams understood that women have longings just as men do, but the expression is often even more dangerous and rejection more shameful.  This is what makes the role of Maggie such a vulnerable and difficult one for an actress to play.  Imagine dressing up in lingerie and being rejected over and over again in front of a live audience...
 I also appreciated how Johansson embraced the side of Maggie that is more than a little annoying.  This is a woman who, in many ways, I would not want to be around.   The play opens with Maggie openly mocking children, calling her nieces and nephews "no-neck monsters."  She is crude in conversation and can be bitterly mean.  And she knows it.  Johansson understood that when Maggie says, "Why am I so catty?  'Cause I'm consumed with envy and eaten up with longing."  It is not a joke, but a very blunt admission of a fact about herself.  Johansson's is a bitter and envious Maggie, deeply concerned with wealth, beauty, and popularity.  She is even  determined to lie and cheat her way into earning what she needs to survive.  And she is delicious.

I will say, though, that little annoys me more than when an actor walks onstage and is instantly applauded.  At the risk of sounding like a snob, I can't help but think: congratulations, tourists, you just saw a famous person.   But they haven't done anything yet, and while I know we're so impressed that she memorized all those lines (as the man behind me pointed out)  the celebrity in question has yet to actually act and therefore, lets not just assume they are going to do anything like a good job. So, it's possible that the compulsory applause as (gasp) Scarlett walked onstage unfairly pitted me against her, but I feel obligated as a reviewer to actually criticize her performance.  Honestly, there were moment's in the first act that really dragged. Yes, every night she begs him to sleep with her, and yes, every night he refuses... but why is this night any different?  Why is this night the night that Williams put in the play.  Some might argue that the reason for that comes later, but the reality is that roughly 80 percent of the lines in act one are Maggie the Cat's (Brick is in a state of alcoholic detachment.) And too much matter-of-fact isn't necessarily the way to go.  Because Johansson played it as "this is what this character's life is like now,"  I did not believe that she was really trying to get Brick to sleep with her that night.  She was saying she was trying, but in order to try the character has to believe that it is possible to achieve her goal.  I didn't think Maggie saw this night as any different.  A concrete example of this was when Maggie was trying to clean a stain out of her dress.  Scarlet Johannon was not cleaning that stain.  She was barely dabbing at the thing.  Because she knew she was going to end up picking up a new dress.  (Everyone who knows the play knows that Maggie spends all of Act One in lingerie, so we also know that she is going to end up taking off the dress.)  But Maggie doesn't know this... so scrub the darn thing.  Try to get the stain out.  Please, Scarlett.  Thank you. Now, keep in mind, I truly enjoyed her performance.  I think she did the role great justice.  But I also love the play.  It is alarming that the girl next to me, at the end of the show, said "That's three hours I wish I had back."  Granted, some people will always feel that way about a Williams play. They are dialogue-heavy, action-light, and, frankly, depressing as all Hell.  But it's the actor's job to make it exciting for everyone.  That is the actor's job.

 Also, I took a slight issue with her voice.  Rather then a Southern drawl, this Maggie seemed to have acquired the raspy voice of a life-time smoker. (Is this Johansson's voice?)  Now, this makes perfect sense, because Maggie is a life-time smoker. No one is saying the Johansson's Maggie has to sound just like Liz Taylor's Maggie, for example, but this play is taking place on "The richest plantation this side of the Mississippi."  So this ought to be born in mind.  Maggie is a Southern woman.  She needs a good Southern accent.

Of course, Scarlett Johansson was not the only part of this play worth commenting on.  Ciaran Hinds as Big Daddy was by far the most delightful performance of the night.  Big Daddy, the wealthy patriarch who is dying of cancer but believes himself to be cured, is probably one of theater's most memorable and difficult roles.  He is simultaneously so admirable and so cruel, that one barely has time to catch one's breath before he shocks you again in a new direction.  And Hinds' portrayal was deeply effective, especially in his long Act Two scene with Brick where he forces Brick to come clean about the reasons for his alcoholism.  I both hate Big Daddy and love him for his crude declarations such as " I'm going to pick me a choice one, I don't care how much she costs... I'll strip her naked and choke her with diamonds and smother her with minks and hump her from hell to breakfast" and Hinds made no apology for the ambiguity of his character.  This is a man who hates his wife, but loves his son.  And he is not ashamed to bribe Brick with alcohol in order to find out why Brick drinks.  And, unlike in Johannson's long scene, I was on the edge of my seat every moment.  Of course, I know how it ends... but I wanted to see how Hinds made it end that way.  And he did it moment-by-moment and beat-by-beat. We learn that Brick, who claims to be refusing Maggie as punishment for cheating on him, is really blaming himself for the suicide of the "other man," who was actually in love with Brick.  Brick may or may not be a homosexual himself.  (This is an interpretive question for another day.)

Finally, I really loved the set design, by acclaimed designer Christopher Oram.  The giant bed center stage seemed to posses a sort of gravitational pull, so that every aspect of the surrounding room was sucked in my it.  The floorboards pointed to the bed, the windows surrounded the bed, even the trees outside seemed to lean into the bed.  This was a brilliant creative nod to the original Broadway design, which was extremely abstract with the bed as basically the only set element.  In Oram's version, we got the feel of a realistic set, but at the same time, it was clear that something was off balance... something not right.  Also, the massive doors and windows were merely frames, which worked wonderfully at creating a space where privacy isn't really possible.  The characters could "shut the door,"  but if the walls are transparent, it really doesn't matter.  In a play with eavesdropping as such a vital element, it helped give the sense of complete vulnerability.  I also appreciated the surrealistic use of sound: every sound effect had some believable justification within the world of the play, but they were crafted in such as way as to be obviously intended for underscoring a scene or punctuating a line.  For example:
Brick: How about these birthday congratulations, these many, many happy returns of the day, when ev'rybody buy you knows there won't be any!
(Firecracker goes off outside.)

This is an excellent use of atmosphere to punctuate meaning.

Directorially, there is one important choice I'd like to mention.  In an earlier blog, I talked about the relevance of certain aspects of darkness in the theater, and this play is a prime example.  Its rare to see a play where literally every scene reminded me of something that has happened in my family.  For this reason I highly commend director Rob Ashford's decision to use Williams' original ending in this revival, as opposed to the altered ending requested by famed director Elia Kazan in the first Broadway production.
Time for a little history lesson:
In the original script, William's wrote the closing lines this way:

Maggie: I really love you, Brick.
Brick: Wouldn't it be funny if that were true.

In this version, there is no doubt that Maggie's advances have been futile, and Brick does not believe she loves him.

Director Elia Kazan felt that this ending was too definitive.  He believed endings should be ambiguous, and the audience should be left to decide for themselves what to think about what the future holds for Maggie and Brick.  Williams could have chosen another director, but Kazan had directed his previous plays with great success, and Williams wanted him, so he made the changes.  The original Broadway script, and the version most commonly read and performed, ends this way.

Brick: I admire you, Maggie.
Maggie: Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace.  What you need is someone to take hold of you- gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of- and I can!  I'm determined to do it- and nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof- is there? Is there, baby?

Keep in mind, that these lines are in the first script, but a few moments earlier.

There is also a third script that sort of jumbles the two endings together. I'm not exactly sure how this script goes, nor have I ever really heard of it being used.

THEN THERE IS THE MOVIE.... oh, the movie. Oh, Hollywood.
The movie ends like this:
Brick: Come here, Maggie.
(They kiss passionately.)

 Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic film.  It's beautiful, touching, and dramatic.  Elizabeth Taylor is mesmerizing as Maggie the Cat.  By all means, go ahead and watch it.  But keep in mind that the movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Richard Brooks, is an excellent film that has nothing to do with the play by the same title.

Okay, that's an exaggeration.  But there are three fatal flaws:

1) A really long and wordy second scene between Brick and Big Daddy that, unlike the scene derived from the play, really has nothing to do with the plot.  It is an extended  opportunity for popular actor Burl Ives to get more screen time.  It essentially amounts to the message that "Money can't buy happiness," which is already dealt with in a better manner in the regular script.
2) Censorship.  Why did Brick's friend Scipper drink himself to death in the play? Because he was a homosexual and Brick said he was disgusted by him.  Why does he throw himself out a window in the movie?  (Well first of all, because drinking oneself to death was "too vague" and audiences wouldn't get that it was a suicide.)  But as to the motive...not really sure.  It's unclear.  Why is it unclear? Because the censors at the time couldn't allow mention of homosexuality.  So... it's kind of just a weird sort of depression mixed with guilt thing.... I guess.  Who really can tell? He just kind of did it and Brick kind of blames himself.  Major plot hole, to say the least.
3)The ending. This is possibly one of the most heinous butcheries of a playwrights's intentions in the history of American theater.  As a result of this line, Williams completely washed his hands of the film.He even claimed in one interview that he refused to see the film.  (This is confirmed to be untrue, but the sentiment is very important to note.)

Given all the possible endings of the play, I am thrilled that the revival is using the original.  The intention of Williams was not to show a marriage in healing, but a marriage in crisis.  Sure, marriages can heal, but Williams didn't know that world.  His parents had a bitter relationship and his relationships were always tumultuous at best.  He was writing the world he knew.

The natural desire of directors and audience members to be happy has brought the play progressively closer and closer to a "feel good" ending. But this is not a feel good play.  That is my opinion.  But it is not the ultimate opinion. (This is the fun part of opinions.)

So we have three different directors opting for three different endings.  They were all talented artists with their own vision and their own interpretation of Williams' script.  (Theater, a collaborative art form  is never entirely one person's voice.)

So: Original ending, Broadway ending, or movie ending?

Which would you chose?
Please comment :-)