It came into my life as a university student. I saw it, read it, dreamed about it, analyzed it and have since seen it a number of times. Yet, even so, seeing it at the Wade James was still like seeing an old and valued friend.
In no way disappointing.
Just like it is supposed to, this “Cat” has the steamy, edgy, feline feel of a plantation house in summertime in the Mississippi Delta, 1955. On the inside, everyone is skittish, touchy, ready to pounce; but on the outside, fawning, purring and only inadvertently rubbing each other’s fur the wrong way. However, given who they are and what they are up to, they make the kind of sense that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Tennessee Williams, wanted them to.
Big Daddy is an imposing, powerful, alpha male. Dying of cancer, he is surrounded by family; and everyone is lying to him about his condition and to everybody else about just about everything.
“Can you smell it?” Big Daddy — so tied up in knots he can’t stand it — finally explodes on his son, Brick.
“Smell what?” flares Brick.
“Lies and lying,” Big Daddy booms back. “I’m talking about mendacity!”
As Big Daddy, Dean Welsh puts across a red-necked, rough-cut, blustering country boy grown up but not without a likeable, human side on the inside. When he speaks, folks listen. When he orders, people obey.
Yet, behind his back, Big Mama (Margaret Bicknell) is taking over. Brother Man (Jimmy Gilletti) and Sister Woman (Laura Katen) are plotting to get the plantation.
About the only family that isn’t back-biting is Jennifer Michele as Maggie “The Cat” and Patrick Braillard as Brick. The lies they tell are to themselves and each other.
You can look at the snide remarks, catty chit-chat, bratty, sarcasm behavior of Brother Man and Sister Woman’s litter of kids as symptoms of family life lived in a maelstrom of dysfunction. You can find hints of homosexuality, incest, even cannibalism or make a case for the destructiveness of greed, jealousy, envy. And/or you can savor the clarity of the characters, the incisive humor, the rhythms of the dialogue. Theresa Thuman’s directing and a fine cast open up any number of possibilities. But however you look at it, one thing is for sure.
This is serious, thought-provoking drama. If you feel like something with weight and substance, this is the one to see.
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