Black Cast Finds Universal Themes in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’

In the second of three local productions of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” audiences face the greatest

challenge to their suspension of disbelief, due to simple facts of American history. The 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, now being staged by the Anthony Bean Community Theatre, features an African-American cast in roles written as white characters. Although there are some notable exceptions, generally, such non-traditional casting isn’t given a second thought in contemporary theatre. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,†however, is set on a plantation in the Mississippi Delta in the 1950s. Even as director Tommye Myrick has pointed out that there were estates held by black landowners at the time, society was still in the era of Jim Crow. Nevertheless, credulity isn’t fatally strained here, and perhaps the greatest success of Myrick’s production is the recognition that the universal themes of the play – the familial conflicts, struggles over alcoholism and addiction, and facing death itself – are clearly not limited by racial lines. Williams was notorious for continually tinkering with his plays. His rewriting of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof†was especially significant. In choosing the original 1955 Broadway script, with some revisions, Myrick gives audiences a different edition than is generally staged. Williams was never happy with that version, which incorporated changes and tonal shifts demanded by Elia Kazan, the original director. In Williams’ final intent, as expressed in the 1974 script, which is the basis of the current published edition, Maggie is triumphant over a resigned and defeated Brick. In Myrick’s production, there isn’t quite a directly happy ending, but it is a more

optimistic point of view of Maggie and Brick’s relationship. By the finale, they are essentially reconciled, if only as co-conspirators to hold onto the plantation by producing an heir. interesting contrast in interpretation.