Monday, March 18, 2013

Theatre - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Tennesse Williams 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof still plays as strong and relevant in the current Broadway revival with Scarlett Johansson, Ciaran Hinds, and Benjamin Walker (dir. Rob Ashford).  Williams was the greatest lyrical voice of the American theatre. The lengthy outpourings of his tormented characters play more like arias than monologues.  All of his plays were personal, if you ask me, but this one seem to be an outpouring of his rage against duplicity in every corner of life - family, medicine, law, and religion.
Mendacity is the system that we live in.  Liquor is one way out an' death's the other.

Why is it so damned hard to talk?

Like E.M. Forster, he exhorts us to stop lying and connect to others, even if it's tough.  They couldn't have been more different writers, but both were gay, so they were familiar with the ways that society expected them to lie.

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