OKC Theatre Co. does classic 'Cat' right

erforming%20Arts%20review%20thumbnails/hottinroof.jpg" width="150" align="right" vspace="10" border="0" />Before women had found and owned their power, there was Tennessee Williams' South.
 
There, gentlemen still practiced a patriarchal dismissal of women, even as they regularly succumbed to their wily manipulation. Williams used this dynamic social contradiction to help weave "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," now a production of Oklahoma City Theatre Company.
 
On a minimalist set, director Rachel Carter has staged this show beautifully with a circular movement pattern that closes in on the characters. She gives her talented cast, however, plenty of freedom to fully realize their roles.
 
THE CAST

Helen Hoepfner and Jason Lamb are beautiful and terrific as Maggie and Brick, a couple tortured by a past that imprisons them. Mark Loftis seems born to play patriarch Big Daddy, making amazing leaps from whispered emotional moments to bombastic rage.
 
Brenda Williams breaks hearts as the reviled Big Mama, masking her lunacy with lockstep genteel manners. Rich Bailey and Erin Hicks-Cheek are fabulously annoying "? and cloying "? as the conniving couple out to curry inheritance favor.
 
The Oklahoma City Theatre Company has found the complexity and passion in this great American classic. Highly recommended and a must for Williams fans. "?Linda McDonald

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