Kurier

English Theatre: Maggie the Cat from Mississippi

Who still remembers that Tennessee Williams had a world premiere in Vienna’s English Theatre and came here personally? „The Red Devil Battery Sign“, a piece about the devilish „Multis“ in 1986. Now, for the author’s 100th birthday, a chronicle of a family in disarray, „Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,“ is running at Vienna’s English Theatre. And although there have recently been several good productions of this classic, the American production (director: Jonathan Fox) – conservative and less modern than a recent production at the Burgtheater – is absolutely worth seeing.

Rachel Spencer Hewitt as the capricious young Maggie strikingly recalls Elizabeth Taylor in the neurotic film and in a broad Southern dialect wordily bemoans her erotic and emotional neglect. While her husband Brick (Ross Hellwig) – absolutely true to the text – takes to whiskey to wash away the memory of his dead beloved best friend. Kate Gleason is also well cast as her horribly fertile sister-in-law. After the intermission, John Robert Tillotson as the fatally ill clan patriarch „Big Daddy“ constantly drives the dramatic tension to new heights.

And finally Tennessee Williams’ thesis that „we are all condemned to live alone in our own skin“ is verified. All unhappiness is only the result of mostly futile attempts to break out of this solitary confinement.

Kurier-Wertung: ? ? ? ?

Werner Rosenberger
3. Februar 2011

Der Merker

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF von Tennessee Williams

Again a manor house in the Southern States, occasion: a head of family is celebrating his 65th birthday. The first act belongs to his daughter-in-law Maggie who refers to herself as „Maggie the Cat“. Her situation is indeed that of a cat who doesn’t know how to conduct herself on a hot tin roof – because her main interest (and that is one of the main themes of the piece – and of life) is money. Maggie the cat would not be such a famous stage character if in the first act she did not fight, fight, fight for her position in a running monologue. Actress, Rachel Spencer Hewitt even resembles a young Elizabeth Taylor (who played the film part), that is she is a ravishing brunette with a perfect figure in her slipdress who has a captivating combination of eroticism, lust for life and desperation.

Admittedly, things get more intense in the second act when „Big Daddy“ appears on the scene (the powerful and traditionally also powerfully built) southern American millionaire. Naturally he is also about money, but Williams has also inserted a wider elementary theme of theatrical drama (and of life): death. For Big Daddy had long feared his doctors were about to give him a death sentence from cancer. Now he is endlessly relieved, sees his life stretching into the future – and learns only at the end that he has not been told the truth (theme: life as a living lie). But his great, great sigh of relief (so gripping for the audience which knows the truth) – that is the centre of the piece, this joyous hankering for life. And here John Robert Tillotson is king of the evening and he remains so, he doesn’t give the ball up.

Although the evening offers a further outstanding achievement with Ross Hellwig who plays Brick: Here Williams (nothing is left out in this piece) brings man to man friendship to the brink of homosexuality. Denial of feelings, the abyss of disappointment, the decision to turn away from life and resort to alcohol, are all convincingly portrayed. If one recalls Paul Newman’s comparatively „theatrical“ performance in the film, then Hellwig presents a masterpiece of understatement.

An exquisitely shrill Big Mama by Peggy Cosgrave, who presumably wishes not to know what her husband (doesn’t) feel for her. Particularly excellent is Kate Gleason as the disagreeable sister-in-law, Mae, whom she remodels from caricature to genuine human being (that is if one really can’t honestly decide to like her). In lesser parts: Jay Russell as the other son, hungry for money but too weak really to fight for it; Jeff Sturgeon as the doctor with the unpleasant task of informing the family of the true diagnosis; Dennis Kozeluh in the rather unnecessary role of the minister who here serves as social ornament. The group of children are here reduced to a single shrill girl.

In a set design (Neil Prince) which would pass as luxury for a newly rich southern family, Jonathan Fox has staged a brilliant, fast moving, unsentimental, completely focussed on elementary feelings, production. A „loving family“ one is glad not to have to take home. What one does take away is the memory of a playwright who could write extraordinarily strong works.


Renate Wagner
02.02.2011

KRONEN ZEITUNG

Tennessee Williams im English Theatre

Rachel Spencer Hewitt is the radiant beauty, catlike, love-needy Maggie. Ross Hellwig, the attractive, nervous, passive Brick. Special praise is due to Robert Tillotson, a star in the USA and Canada, who fills the stage with his outstanding portrayal of Big Daddy. Peggy Cosgrave surprises with the sympathetic qualities of a neglected, oppressed Big Mama; one moment tearfully composed, the next, resolute and determined to fulfill the wishes of her dying husband.
Kate Gleason as the ever-pregnant Mae, Jay Russell as the inconsequential Gooper, little Toni
Arroyave at the head of the „no-neck monsters“ ….all perform within the conventional framework of effective theatre. Tennessee Willliams is timeless! The great stage setting by Neil Prince evokes the over-heated atmosphere of the southern states. Scenes are full of inter-personal tensions.
V. P.
04.02.2011

DER STANDARD

Theater Crisis

The well-to-do Southern Politt family is celebrating in a first floor bed-living room the 65th birthday of plantation owner „Big Daddy“ (impressive in the role is John Robert Tillotson).
Apart from Big Daddy, the patriarchal embodiment of the American dream, and his Big Mama (an only seemingly naive Peggy Cosgrave), all know that he is harbouring a deadly ulcer. The diagnosis of cancer is kept secret, a combination of animosity and mendacity governs the proceedings.

In this original version the situation builds to a climax on a summer evening. A torrent of love, hate, lies, truth, sickness and death tears off and unmasks the family’s desperation. On the classic and realistically furnished stage (Neil Prince) kitschy music fortifies the tension in energetic moments of silence.

The first act is but a foretaste of the thickening plot. And yet Rachel Spencer Hewitt as Maggie glides lightly over the hot tin roof to rescue her marriage and her inheritance. Cats don’t burn their paws. Her closeted gay husband, played with increasing intensity by Ross Hellwig, remains stoic and waits for the whiskey-click.

Brick’s characterless brother Gooper (Jay Russell) who remains inconspicuous in the fight at first and his wife Mae (Kate Gleason) surrounded by no-neck monsters (the children) can’t win against Maggie in the end.
Sebastian Gilli
5.2.2011

DIE PRESSE

Now it’s getting tight: Tennessee Williams presents the family.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in Vienna’s English Theatre: classically stringent intimate play with some shrill notes.

Things get tight on the small stage before the finale of Tennessee Williams’ drama, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: a preacher, a doctor and the family crowd together in the bedroom of the younger son, Brick (Ross Hellwig), and his attractive wife, Margaret (Rachel Spencer Hewitt) to celebrate the 65th birthday of „Big Daddy“ (John Robert Tillotson). The pain-wracked patriarch gathers hope where earlier the suspicion of cancer had ruled the household.

So it’s time to celebrate in total denial but the truth soon emerges. The centre of the play -and this becomes apparent under the classically stringent direction of Jonathan Fox – is a struggle for the favours of Brick, once the hope of the family, a sport’s star who never made a big career after all, who became a TV commentator and promptly, for an initially unclear reason, became a heavy drinker.

Fine theatre from the USA

In the first act the rejected Maggie fights for her husband in a great monologue. He is a husband in name only for his furious wife. The couple are childless, in contrast to Brick’s older brother Gooper (Jay Russell) who has five children with his wife Mae (Kate Gleason) with a sixth on the way. These „no-neck monsters“ according to Margaret, have been specifically planted to gain the inheritance. Margaret battles and Hewitt plays her with heart, a strong Southern accent and impressive body language. Her husband Brick, on the other hand, is desperately unwilling. The two performers are congenially complementary. This is fine theatre from the USA

Brick, who threatens to come apart at the suicide of his best friend, Skipper, is suspected of homosexuality, his wife’s infidelity, remains beleaguered. In the finale Big Daddy will fight, as Maggie does, for Brick’s affection. The massive Tillotson gives a great performance here. Peggy Cosgrave, as resolute, dominated only by Big Daddy, Big Mama, is remarkable. She gives the drama its shrillest note. Perhaps her naivety is part of the cleverest lie, such a mother is adamant when it comes to revealing the truth. In this production falsehood and truth remain in balance. That is called hope.

norb
11.02.2011