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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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Biz Bestseller!
Author: Tennessee Williams Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 85 Pub. Date: 1958 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822201895 ISBN-13: 9780822201892 Cast Size: 5 female, 8 male, and 4 children
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About
the Play:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was one of
Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th
century.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a full-length drama by Tennessee
Williams. In this Pulitzer Prize winner, a wealthy Southern
patriarch faces impending death and manipulates his family, as his
children squabble and mislead in desperate attempts to secure the
family inheritance. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a
modern tale of a
world filled with people determined to keep secrets and lie while
keeping up a certain appearance that feels particularly relevant in the
age of social media and influencers. Especially recommended for
school and contest use.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is
a portrayal of what it takes to survive in a society where everyone
is desperate to feel free. On a sweltering Mississippi night, the
dysfunctional but wealthy Pollitt family gathers to celebrate
the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy, as they sentimentally dub him.
But there is more to this
gathering than a family party. Lurking under every interaction there
is an ulterior motive, under every smile, a challenge,
because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past
and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as
the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. The cat in the title refers to Maggie, Big Daddy's daughter-in-law, who wants to give him the
news that she's finally become pregnant by Big Daddy's favourite son, former football hero Brick, but Brick won't cooperate in Maggie's plans and
prefers to stay in a mild alcoholic haze the entire length of his
visit. Maggie has her own interests at heart in wanting to become
pregnant, of course, but she also wants to make amends to Brick for
an error in judgement that nearly cost her her marriage. Swarming
around Maggie and Brick are their intrusive, conniving relatives, all
eager to see Maggie put in her place and Brick tumbled from his
position of most-beloved son. By evening's end, Maggie's ingenuity,
fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick's love for his
father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his path of
destruction and return him, helplessly, to Maggie's loving arms. Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof is
arguably Tennessee Williams'
most celebrated play.
Cat on A Hot Tin Roof premiered in 1955 on Broadway at the
Morosco Theater. Winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the
Drama Critics Award for the best play, the show has enjoyed five
Broadway revivals. The play
has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and
workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school,
college, and community theatre productions.
Cast: 5 female, 8 male, and 4 children (2 girls, 2 boys)
What people say:
"…a play of tremendous
dramatic impact … enormous theatrical power." — New
York Post
"…Williams has fashioned his
most compelling characters." — New York
Journal-American
"This is a gripping and
intensely moving play, a play that can hold its own with anything
written in the post-O'Neill American theater … Brilliant scenes,
scenes of sudden and lashing dramatic power, break open … There is,
indeed, no one moment in the evening when the stinging accuracy of
Mr. Williams' ear for human speech is not compellingly in evidence …
Mr. Williams is the man of our time who comes closest to hurling the
actual blood and bone of life onto the stage; he is also the man
whose prose comes closest to being an incisive natural poetry."
— The New York Times
About the Playwright:
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the 20th century's
most superb writers, was also one of its most successful and
prolific. He was born in Columbus, Mississippi, where his grandfather
was the Episcopal clergyman. When his father, a travelling salesman,
moved with his family to St. Louis some years later, both he and his
sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered
college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to
take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years,
spending the evening writing. He entered the University of Iowa in
1938 and completed his course, at the same time holding a large
number of part-time jobs of great diversity. He received a
Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948
and 1955.
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