Winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof features nine principal human cast members — all humans. No cats.
Oklahoma City’s Jewel Box Theatre, 321 NW 36th St., will stage the Tennessee Williams play July 18-Aug. 3.
“One of the things that I like about Jewel Box,” said director Rodney Brazil, “is that with this season, they’re not shying away from these casts that are a little bit bigger. Live performing arts is expensive, and it’s hard to pay for it. … A lot of times, when it comes to plays in community theater, it can be easy to pick a three-, four-, five-person play. … Audiences are going to be in for a treat to really kind of see a full-scale play like you might’ve seen decades ago when these things were written that we don’t necessarily see now.
“It’s not gonna be three people and a ladder in a spotlight. We’ve really got this full production, a full set, a big group of all very experienced actors bringing their talents together.”
Brazil said Jewel Box’s current season, which also includes Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs (Sept. 5-21) and Ken Ludwig’s stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (Oct. 17-Nov. 2), features “classic plays that people know and love but maybe haven’t had the chance to see in Oklahoma City in a long time.”
The metaphorical “cat” in Williams’ play is Maggie, a dissatisfied wife caught in a loveless marriage. Brazil said actor Tiffany Tuggle, who plays Maggie in the Jewel Box production, masters the controlled physicality required for the role made famous by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1958 film.
“She uses her physical appearance to negotiate with other people,” Brazil said. “That was something that Tiffany really brought at the audition was that ability to kind of use her femininity to communicate in different ways, not even necessarily in a sexual way. … I felt like that was important to the role, and Tiffany is definitely successful at that. I think that’s going to really be a strong point in the show.”
Maggie’s husband Brick is an alcoholic haunted by the suicide of his friend, Skipper. The role, played by Paul Newman in the 1958 film, will be played in the Jewel Box production by Carson Rapsilver. He’s an experienced actor, but he only recently moved to Oklahoma City,” Brazil said. “One of the things that he brought to the audition was this very internalized, stoic quality that Brick has. Brick has all of these emotions going on, but he really doesn’t want to let them out. And he’s reluctant to share how he’s really feeling.”
Brick’s father, Big Daddy, is the other central character. Played by an imposing Burl Ives in the 1958 film, Big Daddy is celebrating his 65th birthday, and concerns about his health and how his estate will be divided add heat to the already-simmering conflict between Brick and Maggie, whose troubled relationship seems incapable of providing an heir. Brazil said actor Chris Crane gives Big Daddy a charismatic complexity that elevates the production.
“One of the things that Chris brings to the role is a little bit of a likability that you don’t always see,” Brazil said. “He is a harsh man, but he shows how sometimes people can be harsh and they can be hard-nosed and they can have high expectations, but they can be compassionate as well at times, and Chris is doing a great job with that.”
Complex subtext
At 70 years old, the play has some dated references and language, Brazil said, but its central conflict pitting societal expectations against personal desires remains relevant.
“There’s, of course, no cell phones in the show,” Brazil said, “but there are a lot of people that spend a lot of time trying to cultivate a public image. They say things that they want people to believe are true, but behind closed doors, that’s not really true. People maybe think that they’ve moved past some of those gender norms and what a woman’s role is in the family and what a man’s role is in the family. There are still a lot of things when it comes to having children, not having children, taking over the family business, those things are very, very real for a lot of people today, and especially in Oklahoma, where a lot of family businesses are passed down from generation to generation.”
Another of the play’s central conflicts was almost completely removed from the 1958 film.
“One of the major themes is that people think that Brick is gay,” Brazil said, “and that really is censored out of the movie. When you compare it to the stage play, it’s really been minimized. In the play, Maggie almost comes right out and says, ‘You’re gay and that’s okay with me, even though we’re married.’ He, of course, denies it every time. It’s my perception he doesn’t even really understand what his sexuality might be.”
Ensuring the play’s rich emotional subtext translates to a 21st-century audience is a problem Brazil compares to a high-stakes balancing act.
“Modern audiences may not always be familiar with some of the turns of phrase that they use,” Brazil said. “So making sure that every moment is clear and everything that these people say are relevant to audiences, keeping all those plates spinning at the same time, that’s the biggest challenge … making those dominoes fall, making sure that by the end of the show, it seems plausible that every single thing that we saw led to the next in a coherent way.”
Brazil said his background directing musicals and comedies — including his own Pricks! The Vaccine Musical featured in OKC’s Theatre Crude Fringe Festival in 2023 — is useful for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, though the play is neither.
“We’re certainly not approaching it as a comedy,” Brazil said. “There are some amusing things that these characters do, and there are some idiosyncrasies that these characters have sometimes that do kind of bring the lighter side to a lot of heavy drama. … One of the things that Tennessee Williams is known for is the musicality of his language. Even though we’re not singing anything, a lot of his sentences sort of trip out of the mouth like a song lyric.”
To quote Maggie the (metaphorical) cat: “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?”
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This article appears in City crowned.