Claim: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof features several recurring motifs, including decay.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams . One of Williams 's best-known works and his personal favorite , the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955 . Set in the `` plantation home in the Mississippi Delta '' of Big Daddy Pollitt , a wealthy cotton tycoon , the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy 's family , primarily between his son Brick and Maggie the `` Cat '' , Brick 's wife .   Cat on a Hot Tin Roof features several recurring motifs , such as social mores , greed , superficiality , mendacity , decay , sexual desire , repression , and death . Dialogue throughout is often rendered phonetically to represent accents of the Southern United States . The original production starred Barbara Bel Geddes , Burl Ives , and Ben Gazzara . The play was adapted as a motion picture of the same name in 1958 , starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick , with Burl Ives and Madeleine Sherwood recreating their stage roles . Williams made substantial excisions and alterations to the play for a revival in 1974 . This has been the version used for most subsequent revivals , which have been numerous .