An intense evening of superb theater is what you can expect from the Waterfront Playhouse production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof."
Director Joan McGillis has cast some of Key West's best talent in this thought-provoking play of southern family discord and abrasive confrontation. Gina Franz, who makes her Key West stage debut as Margaret, brings her Broadway experience to the Waterfront stage, adding a fresh talent to this high quality production.
Her role as the outspoken southern wench scorned by her booze-swilling husband is a demanding one. She rants continuously through the first act, which is mercifully followed by the first of two intermissions.
Scott Gilmore is the perfect Brick with his athletic build and aloof demeanor, waiting for the alcohol-induced "click" that brings him relief from unwanted feelings and the "mendacity" of life.
Williams' play was awarded both the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1955. When first presented on Broadway the play was labeled by the New York Times as the "work of a mature artist . . . not interested in story but in unconscious motivations, and lack of communication among people." Time magazine, on the other hand, called the work "Considerable talent marred by intemperate feelings . . . play scatters because writer did not decide on main issue."
Today, that is probably what audiences appreciate most about the play, is its multi-thematic make up, which combined with inferences and innuendo keeps the audience completely intrigued. The play tosses together such familiar ingredients as alcoholism and latent homosexuality, spread thick on a slice of family dysfunction and sprinkled liberally with the fear of controlling women and death.
Picture Marjorie Paul-Shook as the very pregnant and seemingly sugar-sweet Mae, pushing her husband to confront Big Mama (Chris Stone) about the family inheritance just seconds after her mother-in-law is told of Big Daddy's (Richard Grusin) inoperable cancer.
Gooper, played by Bruce Peterson, manages to hush the southern wench intermittently, but the real battle here is not between the brother heirs, but between the wives. And the ultimate power of the family women— to breed or not to breed— to give access to booze, and to administer medication— is one of the many underlying themes that comes to surface in this play.
The "no-neck monsters," played by McGillis' granddaughters, Sonora and Kelsey Tillman, with assistance from Ricky Hatch and Kyle Holtcamp, are much too angelic looking to be convincing brats. But they all do a fine job of making a ruckus when called for.
It's possible that today's audiences may be better equipped than the post-war, pre-60s theater audience was to have a grasp of the symbolism and deep psychological undertow that runs through "Cat." At any rate, Williams' work ages nicely and the current production would probably please the bard as much as it does the audience.
"Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" plays through April 30. For ticket information, call 294-5015.