Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) - Quotes - IMDb Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Quotes Showing all 47 items Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live? Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Thank you for keeping still, for backing me up in my lie. Brick Pollitt : Maggie, we're through with lies and liars in this house. Lock the door. Brick Pollitt : What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Just staying on it I guess, long as she can. Dixie Pollitt : Why is Uncle Brick on the floor? Brick Pollitt : Because I tried to kill your Aunt Maggie. But I failed. And I fell. Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : This was what my father left me, this lousy old suitcase! And on the inside was nothing, nothing but his uniform from the Spanish-American war. That was his legacy to me! Nothing at all!

And I built this place from nothing. Brick Pollitt : That was all he left you? Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : He was a hobo, the best-known tramp on the boxcar circuit. He'd worked once in awhile as a field hand, and I'd tag along. Sat on my bare bottom in the dirt, waiting for him. Outside of hunger, the first thing I remember is shame. I was ashamed of that miserable old tramp. I was riding boxcars with him when I was nine, something you never had to do. You'll never have to bury me the way I buried him. I buried him in a meadow alongside a railroad track. He was running to catch a freight and his heart give out. You know something? That old tramp died laughing. Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Brick Pollitt : I'm ashamed, Big Daddy. That's why I'm a drunk. When I'm drunk, I can stand myself. Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : But it's always there in the mornin', ain't it? The truth and it's here right now!

[They run outside into the rain] Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You're just feeling sorry for yourself; that's all it is! Self-pity! [Inside the carport] Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You didn't kill Skipper. He killed himself. You and Skipper and millions like you are living in a kids' world. Playing games, touchdowns, no worries, no responsibilities. Life ain't no damn football game. Life ain't just a buncha high spots. [He grabs Brick] Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You're a thirty-year-old kid. Soon you'll be a fifty-year-old kid. Pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away. Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game. Mendacity! You won't... [winces in obvious pain] Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You won't live with mendacity? Well, you're an expert at it! The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love any more.

Truth is dreams that don't come true, and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die. Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Brick Pollitt : Why'd you let Mama buy all this stuff? Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : The human animal is a beast that must die. If he's got money, he buys and buys and buys everything he can, in the crazy hope one of those things will be life-everlasting, which it can never be. I've suddenly noticed you don't call me Big Daddy anymore. If you needed a big daddy, why didn't you come to me? If you needed someone to lean on, why Skipper? Why not me? I'm your father! Why didn't you come to your kinfolk, the people that love you? Brick Pollitt : You don't know what love means! To you, it's just another four-letter word. Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : You've got a mighty short memory! What was there you ever wanted that I didn't buy? Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Wouldja look at all this stuff?

Bought most of it when I took your mother to Europe on that Cook's Tour. Never had such a lousy time in my life. I tell you that Europe ain't nothin' but a wore-out auction, just a great big fire sale, the whole rotten thing. Boy, Big Mama just wild in it, and she just bought and bought and bought. Sure is lucky I'm a rich man, yes, sirree, sure is lucky. Got any idea how much I'm worth, son? Ask Gooper. He knows. He knows to the penny 'less I missed my guess. Close on ten million dollars in cash and blue chip stocks besides twenty-eight thousand of the richest acres this side of the Valley Nile. Brick: Well, that is pretty rich to be. Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : But, there's one thing you can't buy at any European fire sale, [clears cobwebs from broken clock] Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : or any other market on Earth. That's your life. You can't buy back your life when it's finished. Brick: No, sir, no-one can.

Harvey 'Big Daddy' Pollitt : Feelin' sorry for me, or for you? Brick: For you, Papa. Share this: Facebook | Twitter | Permalink Hide options Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : We've still got one thing on our side. No, two things. Are my seams straight? Big Daddy dotes on you, Brick. He can't stand Brother Man and Brother Man's wife. That fertility monster, she's downright odious to him, I can tell. That's the second thing we've got on our side. He likes me. The way he looks me up and down and over, he's still got an eye for girls. Brick Pollitt : That kind of talk is disgusting. Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt : Did anybody ever tell you you're a back-aching Puritan, Brick? I think it's a fine thing that a man on the doorstep of death can still look at a woman like me with what I call deserved appreciation. Broadway: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Review, Drama, Broadhurst Theatre, New York Theatre Guide - Online A Review by Barbara Mehlman and Geri Manus.

Maggie the Cat, the unfulfilled wife in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," poses in her satin slip, with back arched, ready to pounce on Brick, her unwilling husband. Slithering around their huge bedroom, with its huge unused bed, fixing her stockings, changing her dress, Maggie seeks to reclaim the love she never had in the first place. Brick answers by clinking the ice in his glass, and waiting for the "click" that signals he�s finally too drunk to care. Interesting name, Brick. Sounds so solid, yet this character is broken, literally and metaphorically. Nursing a broken leg, Brick stumbles around with his two crutches, one of metal, the other of whiskey, a man of crumbling clay at best. The heir to his father�s fortune, this oppositional son is doing battle with the ugly truths that keep spilling out right before his eyes: a wife who poisoned their marriage by cheating with his best friend; a dead best friend who loved him a bit too much -- and was loved in return; and a dying father, all reasons why a man might grab a bottle for comfort. But Brick�s worst enemy is Brick..

Big Daddy says the enemy is "mendacity," the word he roars loudly over and over again, disgusted with the habitual lying by his family who all pretend to care about each other, but in reality would more likely scratch each other's eyes out. Maggie isn't the only cat here. Mendacity, however, is the one thing this production isn't guilty of. Never has the truth of the Pollitt family been so clearly delineated. The all-black cast offers new interpretations of characters we thought we knew, forcing us to reexamine our judgments of Maggie, Brick and Big Daddy. Emotions that were always subtext are now brought into sharp focus with an extra 25 minutes of script never performed before on Broadway, helping us understand Brick and his family's demons, not to mention playwright Tennessee Williams's as well. This "Cat" is an outstanding revival of a well-worn script, one the Williams' estate assumed had its definitive performance on film with Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives, and Paul Newman. In fact, the estate was loath to give the show's producers the performance rights since the powers that make those decisions believed there was nothing left to be said. How wrong they were.

James Earl Jones, in a "Playbill" interview, said that he always wanted to play Big Daddy, and he makes it seem as if the role were written with him in mind. His supersized body, thunderous voice, and acting brilliance makes one wonder why he never played the part before. Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama is the perfect mate. At her most distraught, she still commands the family and the stage. Terence Howard makes the transition from movies to the stage effortlessly, and yes, he has Paul Newman eyes even if they're not blue. He gives Brick a vulnerability that is shared by his match, Anika Noni Rose, whose star-power was evidenced in "Caroline, or Change." She infuses Maggie with a sensuality and softness that adds complexity to the character who cannot find a way to touch her husband, and makes us want to champion her cause, even as we learn the root of it all. This is the "fifth life" on Broadway for the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, having had its first production in 1955. Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara, and Burl Ives were the stars then, but the truncated script merely hinted at Brick's latent homosexuality.

Subsequent productions, which were also Bowdlerized, never achieved the memorability of the film, especially the awful one in 2003 with Ashley Judd, Jason Patric, and Ned Beatty. But "five," apparently, is the charm. "Cat" was written by a white man, and expected to be performed by white actors, yet this cast of color has proven without equivocation that the story transcends traditional color lines. The extraordinary performances of the stellar cast, and the insightful direction of Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad's baby sister, are responsible for this success. But it also helps that, given the current political scene, the time was right for breaking new ground with a treasured American classic. Barbara Mehlman & Geri Manus "Flabby revival" & "The production acquires a haze of sentimentality that makes it soft when it should be sharp." Ben Brantley New York Times "Allen's all-black cast works fine as a concept, but her nearly three-hour production is hit-and-miss. It doesn't deepen Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize winner, which is filled with sex, lies and Delta depravity.

Those ingredients make for a show that can bubble over and boil. This one mostly just simmers." Joe Dziemianowicz "I've seen smoother stagings of the play, but this one is well worth seeing. It has satisfying power and little or any "mendacity." Clive Barnes "The thunderstorm and fireworks punctuating the later scenes of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" are cheesy effects, but the bold acting that lights up a new production of Tennessee Williams' classic is the real, electrifying thing." Michael Sommers Star-Ledger "Phylicia Rashad's Big Mama has some undeniably funny moments, and a few poignant ones; but it's another case of a normally astute, elegant actress adding too much sauce to an already spicy part. Lisa Arrindell Anderson is even more histrionic as Maggie's conniving, annoying sister-in-law." Elysa Gardner "A shimmering ensemble that honors America's great poet of bruised humanity." Linda Winer NewsDay "Lopsided and often wrongheaded" & "Silence about a thing just magnifies it," Maggie pleads as she tries to pry the unpleasant truth from Brick. And magnifying a thing, as Ms.

Allen does to woefully reductive effect, can mute its impact to the point of silence." Eric Grode "The play is as rich in subtext as in its thrillingly confrontational text, which the director, Debbie Allen -- also an actress, dancer and choreographer -- brings to highly kinetic life in spite of some serious errors." John Simon Bloomberg "This is a distinctly disheveled production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" that will do nothing to advance the reputation of Tennessee Williams. But it will be a treat to fans of Jones and Rashad, who can enjoy their over-the-top performances." Jacques le Sourd Journal News "This "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," directed by Debbie Allen, may be short on drama and conflict and not have a center, but it does connect to the audience's funny bone. At times it seems like one of those sitcoms about a family of warring oddballs, which I don't think was the playwright's intention." Robert Feldberg The Record "The mournful sounds of a saxophone player wail through the opening and closing moments of the all-black Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

These jazzy if unnecessary interludes are symbolic of the often clunky excesses found throughout this uneven production of the Williams classic. Subtle, it's not." Michael Kuchwara "Certainly, Tennessee Williams' classic play contains its share of humor, as do many of his works. But the current revival directed by Debbie Allen resembles nothing so much as a raucous family sitcom." Frank Scheck "While Debbie Allen's inexperience as a director shows in pedestrian physical staging with a tendency toward heavy-handedness, she lucks out where it most matters -- with her powerhouse cast. " David Rooney This 'Cat' is ready to pounce - StarTribune.com Stage & Arts 137684693 This 'Cat' is ready to pounce Director Lisa Peterson's revival of Tennessee Williams' tortured classic "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opens at the Guthrie.

By Rohan Preston Star Tribune January 19, 2012 — 2:59pm Tom Wallace, Star Tribune Emily Swallow (Maggie) talks with her husband Brick (Peter Christian Hansen) in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Purchase: Order Reprint If you think you know Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" from the 1958 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, think again. The playwright had nothing to do with the screenplay based on his play, which had opened on Broadway three years earlier. The movie highlighted father-son reconciliation as a central theme, and muted Brick's gay heartbreak, offering scant explanation of why he would reject the come-ons of a wife played with sizzle by Elizabeth Taylor. "It made little sense dramaturgically," said Carla Steen, who is the dramaturg for the Guthrie Theater's production of "Cat" that opens today. "But there's confusion in general around this play, which many people think they have seen but actually haven't." Director Lisa Peterson has opted to use Williams' last revision of his own Pulitzer-winning play.

In that version, published in 1974, the playwright restored cuts suggested by director Elia Kazan for the Broadway production, with issues of greed, lying and repressed homosexuality more sharply drawn. The playwright himself often was contradictory about his own work. "In his letters and notes, Williams always regretted the compromises he made for the '55 production," said Steen. "But in some of the letters, he said that he was happy with the changes. In others, he said he was bullied into them." CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF What: By Tennessee Williams. Directed by Lisa Peterson. When: 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 1 & 7 p.m. Sun., 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Thu. Ends Feb. 26. Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Mpls. Tickets: $24-$68. 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org . Director Peterson said that Williams' 1974 revisions made the drama richer and more contemporary.

"It's a tough family play, not a warm and fuzzy one," said Peterson, whose Guthrie credits include a luminous "Oedipus" in 2005 and an impeccable "Major Barbara" two years later. "These people are desperate and hard on each other. The takeaway from their struggles is that in the end, life wins." Family dynamics and drama Said to be Williams' favorite play, "Cat" takes place in one night at the plantation estate of Big Daddy Pollitt, the largest cotton mogul in the Mississippi Delta. As his family gathers, ostensibly to celebrate his 65th birthday -- the party is really a living wake, as he is dying of cancer but does not know it -- his offspring's problems and desires torque the play into a "Dynasty" forerunner. Competing sons Brick and Gooper are in line to get big inheritances. But Brick doesn't seem all that interested in fighting for his share of the legacy, even as his wife, Maggie the Cat, eggs him on. The two are in a sexless marriage; Brick has turned to alcohol as he grieves the recent suicide of his friend Skipper.

At the Guthrie, the sullen and introspective Brick is played by Twin Cities actor Peter Christian Hansen, who portrayed the same character in a small, well received production of "Cat" by Torch Theater in 2006. The cast includes two imports -- Tony nominee Melissa Hart, who plays Big Mama, and Emily Swallow as Maggie the Cat. A Jacksonville, Fla., native, Swallow studied Arabic at the University of Virginia in preparation for what she thought would be a career in diplomacy. She had a change of heart during her senior year. She applied to and was accepted into graduate school at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts using a monologue from a Williams play. Maggie "comes from a poor background and doesn't want to go back there," Swallow said. "She loves Brick and understands where he's coming from, but she wants to keep what she has got." The actor has played a steely detective on TV in "Ringer" and a detective's wife in "Southland." She made her Broadway debut in the short-lived musical "High Fidelity" a few years ago.

In 2008, she was the striking fairy queen Titania in the Guthrie's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The "Cat" cast includes David Anthony Brinkley of "Scottsboro Boys" as Big Daddy; he came directly from playing Big Mama in "Hairspray" at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres. Chris Carlson ("God of Carnage") plays Gooper. For Swallow, the role is close to her heart. While she has not acted in a Williams play before, she auditioned for the same part "five or six years ago." She did not get it. "And a good thing, because I don't think I would've been ready for it," she said. Swallow says that both her education and her experiences have prepared her for Maggie the Cat. "She's a fierce, intelligent, determined character," Swallow said. "And she has all these beautiful lines." Racial subconscious The drama is surprising in the precision of its language and the surreal approach to complex social and family issues, said director Peterson, who only came to Williams five years ago when she directed "The Glass Menagerie" at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

"I'd always been drawn to Shaw and Shakespeare and Caryl Churchill -- playwrights using language as argument," said Peterson. " I always thought that Williams was too emotionally centered for me. I was scared of him. Now I realize he's a language writer, a poet of the corners of our soul." Williams' plays frequently are suffused with a theme of being trapped, like a bird in a cage trying to escape. "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Summer and Smoke," just to name two, both center on characters trying to escape something that would keep them in place. The playwright's most successful plays, written in the 1940s and '50s, also carry the ethos of America at the time he wrote them. The racial subconscious of the nation is made vivid in "Cat," which is, after all, set on a cotton plantation, a crop that is synonymous with toiling slaves. "Big Daddy, who we love and who his staff admires, uses the n-word," said Peterson. "He says coon and A-rab. He's a good old-fashioned racist.

It's raw, but that's how people spoke at the time." Primal Scenes: The homosexual in the text: Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) Idle thoughts on cinema in 500 words (give or take a few). by Ian Scott Todd 11.25.2012 The homosexual in the text: Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) We see in the Hollywood films of the late 1950s and early 1960s the emergence of a subgenre that might be called the closet drama—that is to say, the melodrama that takes the phenomenon of closetedness as its central theme. Tea and Sympathy (dir. Vincente Minnelli, 1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Suddenly, Last Summer (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959) and The Children’s Hour (dir.

William Wyler, 1961) (all of which, incidentally, originated as stage plays) make the closet into a MacGuffin, a plot device that mobilizes a range of dramatic scenarios (the confrontation, the confession, the investigation, etc.) and catalyzes various displays of emotion (confusion, curiosity, anger, shame, disgust, etc.). All are put on even greater display in Richard Brooks’ film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof than in the stage version, because by soft-pedaling the homosexuality of the play the film makes the space of the closet even more spectacularly impregnable—as impregnable, in fact, as Elizabeth Taylor’s Maggie, whose childlessness becomes the most telling signifier of her husband Brick’s queerness. (As in Suddenly, Last Summer, as D. A.

Miller has pointed out, the spectacle of homosexual desire, too horrific to show “head-on,” as it were, plays out on the level of the image of Taylor’s voluptuous female body.) Thus Cat on a Hot Tin Roof consists mostly of people slowly circling the locus of the closet—asking questions, making insinuations, lobbing accusations, but failing in the end to penetrate it. Closet dramas are like mysteries: they are structured around the investigation (and, in some cases, the revelation) of homosexuality. The investigation amounts to a nauseated, but dogged, sniffing-out; in this regard the investigative figures are not so different from the hungry cannibals who devour Sebastian Venable in Suddenly, Last Summer, the follow-up to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that delivers the spectacular climax from which Cat skittishly backs away. Homosexuality in the closet drama constitutes a truth-knowledge to be learned, a secret to be found out, a riddle to be solved.

Stanley Kauffmann intuited as much when he first saw Suddenly, Last Summer, in which Montgomery Clift basically takes up the investigation where the end of Cat, released the year before, left off: Clift “becomes a sort of private eye trying to solve his ‘case,’ rather than a physician intent on cure.” Kauffmann notes that the final scene of that film resembles “the obligatory scene in most mysteries where the detective assembles all the suspects and finally unmasks the criminal.” The gay mystery plot would later become literalized in such films as The Detective (dir. Gordon Douglas, 1968), in which Frank Sinatra investigates a gay man’s murder; the notorious Cruising (dir. William Friedkin, 1980), something of a racier version of The Detective, with Al Pacino in the Sinatra role; and the gay-porn serial killer thriller Killing Me Softly (dir. John and Lem Amero, 1979). As closet dramas go, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is, finally, a tease: it threatens to open the closet door only to nail it shut.

The film ends with the same assemblage of characters that we find in Suddenly, Last Summer—an audience to an outing—only to deny them, and us, that narrative pleasure. The homosexual in this text remains, in the end, a mystery. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ( 1958 ) Approved | | Drama , Romance | 20 September 1958 (USA) Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 41 titles created 06 Apr 2011 a list of 41 titles created 18 Aug 2013 a list of 25 titles created 13 Aug 2015 a list of 26 titles created 07 Nov 2015 a list of 39 titles created 2 months ago Title: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) 8.1/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 6 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 10 nominations. See more awards » Photos Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her. Director: Elia Kazan Sprawling epic covering the life of a Texas cattle rancher and his family and associates.

Director: George Stevens A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other. Director: Mike Nichols The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth. Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Accused barn burner and con man Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town and quickly ingratiates himself with its richest family, the Varners. Director: Martin Ritt A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women. Director: George Stevens A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies. Director: Nicholas Ray A wilful young man contends against his brother for the attention of their religious father while reconnecting with his estranged mother and falling for his brother's girlfriend.

Director: Elia Kazan Honest and hard-working Texas rancher Homer Bannon has a conflict with his unscrupulous, selfish, arrogant and egotistical son Hud, who sank into alcoholism after accidentally killing his brother in a car crash. Director: Martin Ritt A Manhattan call girl has a tragic affair with a rich married man. Director: Daniel Mann A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison. Director: Stuart Rosenberg Drifter Chance Wayne returns to his hometown after many years of trying to make it in the movies. Arriving with him is a faded film star he picked up along the way, Alexandra Del Lago. ... See full summary » Director: Richard Brooks Edit Storyline The family of who is "affectionately" known as "Big Daddy" Pollitt convenes at his and Big Momma's vast 28,000 acre East Mississippi plantation for his sixty-fifth birthday, although it may as well be for his funeral on the belief that he is dying.

Despite his latest medical report being clean, in reality he truly does have terminal colon cancer, something the doctor only tells Big Daddy's two sons, Gooper Pollitt, a lawyer, and Brick Pollitt, who recently left his job as a sportscaster. Brooding Brick and his wife Maggie Pollitt, who have driven up from New Orleans for the occasion, are going through a long rough patch in their marriage. Brick wanted to split, but Maggie convinced him to stay married on the condition that she not pressure him for sex. In their troubles, Brick has turned to the bottle, a drunken incident which has left Brick currently on crutches. Maggie believes Gooper and his wife Mae Pollitt are trying to orchestrate Brick out of Big Daddy's will, Brick and ... Written by Huggo Just one pillow on her bed ... and just one desire in her heart! See more » Genres: 20 September 1958 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdach See more » Filming Locations: Mono (Perspecta Sound®) (Westrex Recording System) Color: Did You Know?

Trivia After the sudden death of her husband, Elizabeth Taylor developed a severe stutter when speaking normally. However, when she spoke on-screen in the southern accent of Maggie, it had, luckily, abated. See more » Goofs Despite the fact that merely stepping on his broken leg causes Brick to collapse, he is able to stand on both feet while he is smashing up the cellar. See more » Quotes (College Station, Texas) – See all my reviews This is my all-time favorite film, ever ever ever ever!! How can I describe the fabulousness?? Paul and Liz are so hot and beautifully frustrating together as Brick and Maggie, that the TV nearly explodes...Gooper is perfectly portrayed as a good man, financially independent, but still seeking Big Daddy's approval, and a prime example of a man being "whipped"...we hate Sister Woman, and rightly so -- for she is a despicable character...Big Momma is stronger than anybody thinks, and Big Daddy holds the whole family and story together with his massive strength and faith in himself. The relationship between Brick and Maggie is the most fascinating ever recorded on celluloid.

We think it's all about sex, but if it were, they would have jumped each other long ago (My GOD, LOOK at them!! It's Newman and Taylor). This is a relationship full of confusion, betrayal, honesty, dishonesty, love, desire, and trust. The phenomenal symbolism of Brick's crutch is beautifully represented. The play was wonderful, and the movie was wonderful, but it is important to remember that they are two separate entities. A mistake that I believe that many people make while watching adaptations, is that they are exactly that -- an ADAPTATION! They are not meant to be the same. They should be judged each on their own merit!! On Cat's own merit, it is a magical film 23 of 29 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes Cat on a Perfectly Comfortable Tin Roof | City Arts Cat on a Perfectly Comfortable Tin Roof Tuesday, April 28, 2015 | by Gemma Wilson Brandon O'Neill and Laura Griffith, photo by Chris Bennion For me, like many, mentioning Tennessee Williams evokes a visceral response, like smelling a familiar fragrance—the languid, suffocating sensation of Southern heat and sweat, laced with liquor and colored like fading silk. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which won Williams his second Pulitzer Prize (the first came for A Streetcar Named Desire), fulfills that sensory experience nicely, set as it is in a splendid plantation house in the Mississippi Delta. But that reaction is a romantic, shallow take on his writing—Williames hewed to much more than just geography. "Every artist has a basic premise pervading his whole life...and that premise can produce the impulse for everything he creates," he told LIFE Magazine in 1948.

"For me the dominating premise has been the need for understanding and tenderness and fortitude among individuals trapped by circumstance." Most of the central characters in Cat, now running at ACT Theatre directed by Kurt Beattie, are trapped by circumstance but none more so than Maggie (Laura Griffith), a woman from a poor background who has married into the wealthy Pollitt family. She and her husband Brick (Brandon O'Neill) have returned to his family's plantation to celebrate his father Big Daddy's (John Aylward) 65th birthday. Also in attendance are Brick's adoring mother Big Mama (Marianne Owen), his overlooked older brother Gooper (Charles Leggett), Gooper's eavesdropping wife Mae (Morgan Rowe) and their six children (if you count the one currently in utero). All the action takes place in Maggie and Brick's bedroom/sitting room (lovely gold-on-beige-on-taupe design by Carey Wong), because former football hero Brick broke his ankle trying to jump the hurdles on the high school track the previous night, drunk as hell (as always).

The whole family has assembled for a birthday, but also because Big Daddy may be very sick; there is much talk of dividing the estate, of children (or lack thereof) and mendacity. Maggie dominates the first act like a Shakespearean hero, nattering away to a taciturn Brick who couldn't care less what she has to say as long as he has whiskey. It's that whiskey that could cost the childless Brick his portion of Big Daddy's estate ("28,000 acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile"), especially if stable, family man Gooper has anything to say about it. But underneath her idle chatter, Maggie's fear is pathological and pervasive—this isn't just a woman who finds being poor unpleasant, she will never be poor again. She loves Brick and is fighting like a caged animal, albeit in a beautiful skin. Griffith is somehow too breathy, her confidence too unshaded. Being seductive and feline is just one of the tactics she must use in her unwavering pursuit of her goal—to forge a life (and have a child) with a man to whom she is utterly devoted, who is utterly indifferent to her.

Griffith's unfortunate tendency to mirror her words with hand gestures, as well as a voice that seems to live only above her shoulders instead of resonating in her entire body, dilutes her power considerably. If the first act belongs to Maggie, the second act belongs to Big Daddy, a Southern thunderstorm of a self-made man and a "Mississippi redneck" through and through. John Aylward plays him with outsized relish, pouring out his own fears and poking his fingers into the wounds Brick would like to keep covered. Griffith is a stunner as Maggie, though why costume designer Melanie Taylor Burgess chose to dress her in a distracting strapless bra and half-slip instead of a full slip is beyond me, especially as nothing she wears seems to necessitate that particular underwear. It's iconic—everyone from Elizabeth Taylor on film to Barbara Bel Geddes, Kathleen Turner, Anika Noni Rose and Scarlett Johansson on the Broadway stage has worn a slip—and while there's certainly no requirement to toe that line, to change it just for change's sake seems pointless.

(That said, the dress Maggie put on top of that slip later was so jaw-droppingly beautiful I stopped caring.) The rest of the costuming is splendid, from Brick's silk pajamas to Big Mama's matriarchal finest to Mae's burnt-orange skirt set that made me appreciate just how far maternity wear has come. Maggie and Big Daddy are the forces of nature in the house but it's Brick who is the center of gravity. O'Neill gives a stellar performance, subdued and roiling, as the golden boy gone to seed, a sports star turned sports announcer turned full-time drinker after the death of his best friend Skipper, also from drinking. The unsubtle homoerotic overtones would certainly have been scandalous in 1955, but they don't really do a lot for us now—and it's the test of a great play if the resonance carries on despite changing social mores. What we can relate to is his self-loathing and delusion—as Brick and Big Daddy like to put it, mendacity—liars and lies, that we tell others, and ourselves.

All the actors have great facility with Williams' poetic, quotidian language, and the result is a production that is solidly good. The jokes—and there are many—land with ease, and the surface-level story is told cleanly and clearly. Thankfully, ACT has gone back to Williams' original ending, not the watered down version (which leaves things slightly more hopeful for Brick and Maggie) that director Elia Kazan pressed for when the play premiered on Broadway in 1955. (Though I have to say, the children's whisper-singing that closed out the show gave me the absolute creeps, and not in a good way.) But this staging in the round let a lot of heat dissipate up into the ether, instead of trapping it until the room reached boiling point. Actors had to move around the stage (and up the stairs and around the upper path behind the audience) a lot to give all audience members a fighting chance of feeling included, and all the activity felt like an emotional release valve left open. It also kept Brick and Maggie's bed—a loaded piece of furniture if ever there was one—from carrying any significance.

Without feeling that tension, born of fear and desperation, Cat feels like a battle over farmland, rather than a great, gimlet-eyed look at the ugly, ever-changing human condition. See more in Theatre Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (9781470060992) A beautifully constructed drama of the lie of life and death By Ejordan1@dixie-net.com on Dec 21, 1998 Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize winning play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is a reverie filled drama of lust, greed, and death that puts emphasis on the interaction of families. Williams creates universal characters that are pathetic yet familiar and therefore warrant the reader's sympathy. He writes with such deceptive simplicity that he masks his characters's inner turmoil initially, making the turnout of such characterizations intriguing. The play presents that humanity isn't beautiful while attempting to shed light on the emotional lies that govern the interaction of families. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"'s intertwining themes of the lie of life and the deception of death provide the reader with insight towards the amblivalence of life. To say so much within such a short piece is a mystery within itself.

The sheer power of the plot is testimony of Williams's genius. The play is beautifully constructed and hits upon many themes and emotions with clarity and precision, making it an enjoyable read while having substance. I did an analysis of this book for my junior Reading class, and recommend the read to anyone seeking high drama and a well rounded take on death. The pinnacle of American Drama By B. Wilfong on Oct 25, 2011 This is a superbly written play about that most basic of human issues, the desire to communicate honestly and openly with someone that you care about. At its core, Tennessee Williams' masterpiece is really about nothing more than that. Everyone wants and needs someone to listen to, and accept, you. All of Williams' plays are about lonely people when you come right down to it. However, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is unique in that these lonely characters are part of a large family, and at times are literally tripping over each other. What makes us lonely is our inability to communicate with those that we love. It is in that essential human drive that Williams creates the tragedy of this piece.

A father knows his son is a closeted gay man; he loves him, but can't get the son to believe or accept that. A wife knows the truth about her husband, but can't make herself believe it. (Actually that last one applies to two wives in the play, for different reasons.) A man faces death, in essence alone, because he can't admit how terrified he is. And the list goes on. These are the stories of the Pollitt family of the Mississippi Delta. Those particulars are different for all of us, but the essential worries and fears of the members of this family are universal, and have been at the heart of a powerful drama for over 50 years. The witting of this play is luminous and gorgeous. In fact, at times it reads like poetry. However, the power in this piece is also due in large part to the structure of this three act play. The first act is almost a solo from the character of Maggie. The second act is a painful and terrifying duet from the characters of Brick and Big Daddy, and the final act is the ensemble number that builds, and then ends on a slow drawn out note.

If you see "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in performance it is a long play, and at times painful. You will not feel the same intensity unless you let yourself sit down and devour it in one gulp. Read the play in a day, and you will come closer to approximating seeing it in performance than you otherwise would. In the best of possible worlds, you will read it, and then a month or so later see it in a well done performance. This play is the pinnacle of American Drama. You should know it. Make that the case if it is not so! Southern passion and pain By Michael J. Mazza on Nov 02, 2001 "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is another masterpiece by Tennessee Williams, who was truly one of the 20th century's greatest playwrights. This play was presented in New York in the 1950s, and in book form it is an excellent read. I haven't looked at other editions, but the Signet edition contains two different versions of Act 3, along with a note by Williams explaining how director Elia Kazan persuaded him to write a second version. This feature makes the book particularly useful for teachers and students.

"Cat" takes place on a Southern plantation, and deals with a wealthy, but very dysfunctional family. Williams creates stunning dialogue for his characters: Brick, the bitter, alcoholic ex-athlete; Brick's frustrated wife Margaret; "Big Daddy," the patriarch, who is dying of cancer; and the rest. Williams also establishes the plantation's original owners as a haunting presence through the lines of his characters. "Cat" is an explosive family drama about greed, secrets, guilt, alcoholism, and sexual frustration. Williams' characters are larger-than-life, and even grotesque, but Williams never loses a grasp on their essential humanity. An important book for those with a serious interest in American drama. sultry like the south A Customer on Dec 21, 1999 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof swelters with the fire of longing for that wispy shade of happiness. The fierce currents of discontent, jealousy, and mendacity surge through this piece, leaving the reader to fend for himself on an emotional and gripping roller coaster. The struggle between Maggie the Cat and her husband Brick is the universal struggle to love and be loved through the deceptions and misconceptions that can wreck a chance at happiness.

The external struggles mirror the internal struggles, for each character seems to be battling despair and a sense of worthlessness. All in all a superb read. An emotional and gripping family drama By Bill R. Moore on Dec 31, 2003 Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is Tennessee William's highly-acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning play that stands on equal footing with the best American dramas ever written. While uniquely American, it is also inherently universal. Set in the American South, Williams plays out a kind of Southern King Lear. The drama that plays out is, in its details, distinctly Southern, but the implications and the deeper themes of the story reverberate in the hearts and minds of anyone who has ever been in the midst of a family struggle. A dialogue-only play that features no narration, Cat is quite a unique play for two different reasons. First, it takes place entirely in real time, with no lapses between scenes or acts -- thereby adhering to the Aristotelian unity of time and place, something that isn't seen much in post-classical drama. Also, it maintains a very high level of emotional content throughout the entire play. It starts out quickly, soon reaches a fever pitch, and never lets up.

To quote an early review of another book, Joseph Heller's Catch-22, in what was supposed to have been an insult, "The book seems not to have been written so much as shouted onto the page." Consequently, this is the rare play that not only works wonders on the stage, but is also a great work of literature: it reads very well (one can only imagine the emotional intensity of actually watching it being performed.) The book moves along at a breath-taking pace, and is a very quick read, as most plays are; there is, however, a lot more depth to it than appears on the surface. The themes it deals with are timeless and have been mined by many other playwrights, including Williams, before; indeed, they probably always will be. And yet, they endure. The story of this family struggle speaks to us in ways that few plays can from the page. A true classic of literature as well as the theatre, this work will not be lost on the reader. Williams succeeds brilliantly in his goal to capture the moving, evanescent essence of a family's interactions in motion. The gain is ours. Genius!

By Vanessa Clark on Jan 12, 2006 I believe Tennesee Williams is the most versatile modern playwright who truly exemplifies the dysfuctionality of family morals. The Glass Menagerie, Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof are indeed his masterpieces. I found Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to be my most favorite. The characters were memorable (who can forget Margaret "aka Maggie The Cat," Brick, Big Daddy, and Big Mama?) and the lines truly classic ("What's the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can..."). Also, just like Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on A Hot Tin Roof touched upon subjects that were controversial then and just as controversial now (homosexuality, child molestation, prostitution, etc.), which makes Tenesee William's works highly relevent. His plays age well with time. Not to mention that there have also been INCREDIBLE movie adaptations of all of his famous plays. After you read Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, or Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, watch the movie as well.

There is no other modern playwright (except Oscar Wild and Anthony Wilson)whose plays will truly have a place in my heart for years to come. Many themes discovered in one scene By L. Baghetti on Sep 30, 2004 When I read this play, I was a little shocked; nothing I had read about this play prepared me for what I was about to read. What startled me the most is its bluntness. But after reflecting, I decided it is a well-written play and it wouldn't have the same effect if it were written any other way. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" covers a lot of territory in just 173 pages. Homosexuality, alcoholism, dealing with problems, death, and relationships between husband and wife, family, and friends are just a few to mention. Each is covered in depth, but use few words to describe it. Tennessee Williams never states the facts; he leaves it to us to figure out what the characters are saying and the meaning behind it. With just six main characters, Williams discretely has them deal with their problems in their own way, by facing the facts, ignoring the problem, denial, or drinking the problem away.

Williams paints a clear picture of each character's physical features, but more significant, personality and beliefs. It is interesting to see how the themes in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" are viewed in today's society compared to when the play was first produced in 1955, nearly fifty years ago. The All-American Family, Behind the Mask By Elizabeth on Feb 18, 2004 "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is a very simple story, but at the same time has very involved characters. It deals with many controversial themes such as homosexuality, alcoholism, adultery, and death. It is a true Southern masterpiece that takes place in the Mississippi Delta. Its Southern influence, language, and dialect add a lot of flavor to the novel which, in turn, transforms simple words into an intriguing story. It shows how greed and iniquities can tear a family apart, and also how death doesn't necessarily bring families together. Overall, I would highly recommend this drama because of the unique twists within the plot and characters. Tennessee Williams' novel has completely lived up to its Pulitzer Prize title. Great! By Victor D.

Agama on Apr 18, 2012 I received it in the mail very quickly and it was cheap. It's a fantastic read for anyone and it's much better than the film starring Paul Newman. Lies that seek to maintain, heal, and suffice for false love A Customer on Jan 05, 1999 This southern family cherishes the illusion of lies. Each member maintains their own identity through the world of false communication. It is the root by which the family tree is devoured by disease. When truth is finally spoken, it is too late. There is a limit to human forgiveness, especially of oneself. Maggie the Cat By Robin Friedman on Jan 12, 2015 Tennessee Williams' play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" won the Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award in 1955. Directed by Elia Kazan the play ran for nearly 700 performances on Broadway and starred Barbara Bel Geddes as Margaret, Ben Gazarra as Brick, and Burl Ives as Big Daddy. I reread "Cat" as part of an ongoing project to read and review Tennessee Williams' plays.

John Lahr's biography, "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh" (2014) inspired my project. "Cat" was the first Tennessee Williams play I saw many years ago while still in high school. I was deeply moved by the production, undoubtedly without knowing why. Later that year, when each member in our English class had to do an oral report on an American play, I did Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". "Cat" was not an option. The teacher made clear that she disliked most of Williams, including "Cat". In reading the reviews here on Amazon, I am both impressed and puzzled that this adult-themed and difficult play has found its way into the high school curriculum. Most high school readings are made to be disliked. The play is set in a mansion in the Mississippi Delta and, dramatically, takes place over the course of a few hours in real time. The story is raw, passionate, and extreme. Williams writes with poetry and lyricism. The play involves sexually dysfunctional couples, unmasking character, and a family fight over a large pending inheritance. Of the three primary characters, Brick, Maggie, and "Big Daddy" Pollitt, Maggie wins the playwright's and the reader's heart.

Maggie is a fighter -- a cat in more than one sense. Her husband, Brick, 27, a former athlete and sports announcer has deteriorated into withdrawal and alcoholism and into a sexual disgust and rejection of Maggie. Maggie, lonely, on edge, and frustrated, wants to regain her husband's love, restore him to health, and have a child, both for her own emotional needs and in order to secure Brick a share of the inheritance from the impending death of Brick's father, the fabulously wealthy Big Daddy. Brick is withdrawn into himself and blames Maggie for the death of his friend Skipper with whom Maggie had a brief affair. Big Daddy is dying of cancer, as Brick, Maggie, and the rest of the family which includes Brick's older brother, Gooper, a successful lawyer, and his wife are aware. Big Daddy and his wife Big Mama have initially been lied to about the nature of the illness. The heart of the play is a stunning confrontation between Brick and his father in the second act of the play in which parent and son try to talk to one another and in the process force each other to face reality about themselves without comforting illusions.

The resolution of the play in the final act provoked a great deal of controversy. At Kazan's request, Williams' rewrote the third act in the version that was performed on Broadway and that undoubtedly contributed to the play's success. The major substantive difference is in the portrayal of Brick. In Williams' initial version, Brick does not change character after the confrontation with Big Daddy. In the revised version, Brick becomes a participant with Maggie in her lie that the couple have resumed sexual relations and that Maggie is pregnant with Brick's child. The revised play thus ends more positively than did Williams' initial draft. At the time and for the rest of his life, Williams was ambivalent about the ending. He agreed with much of what Kazan said about the development of the play and relished the commercial success. But Williams couldn't shake the feeling that he had sold out. Most printed versions of the play include both the original third act and the revised version performed on Broadway in 1955. Much of the play deals with homosexuality and with the wide condemnation of homosexual activities in the 1950s.

The themes of the play -- loneliness, sexual frustration, facing death, being honest with oneself, and more -- amply survive the changes in social mores that have occurred subsequently to the play. Williams carefully distinguished between the particular incidents of "Cat" and its more universal themes. In an illuminating stage direction for the climactic moment of Act 2 of the play, Williams discussed Brick's relationship with Skipper as the source of his, and Maggie's troubles. Williams wrote: "The thing they're discussing, timidly and painfully on the side of Big Daddy, fiercely, violently on Brick's side, is the inadmissible thing that Skipper died to disavow between them. The fact that if it existed it had to be disavowed to 'keep face' in the world they lived in, may be at the heart of the 'mendacity' that Brick drinks to kill his disgust with. It may be the root of his collapse. Or maybe it is only a single manifestation of it, not even the most important. The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man's psychological problem.

I'm trying to catch the true quality of experience in a group of people, that cloudy, flickering, evanescent -- fiercely charged! -- interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis." The characters are a mix of feelings and of both good and bad. Maggie is tough, raw, a climber and a lover with an indomitable, fiery will to live. Lahr's biography is an excellent source of information about the interpretation of "Cat", about Williams' and Kazan's views about the script, and about the play's staging and reception. Lahr writes succinctly and perceptively that the play captures the "internal debate" "between the dead heart and the outcrying heart." The play invites deeply personal responses from its readers and audiences. Robin Friedman Hidden Desires and Dark Truths Unfold on Stage By Margaret Carmel on Jul 08, 2015 This was the first Tennessee Williams play that I've ever read, so I was really interested to check it out. And wow. This work shocked me so much more than I was expecting.

Released in the 1950s, this play never leaves the confines of the Maggie and Brick's bedroom but tackles issues of homosexuality, hypocrisy, marriage, escapism, love, lies, and the confines of manliness. Over the course of the novel the characters are constantly battling with truths that lurk just beneath the surface. Brick's love for his friend Skipper, Big Daddy's illness, and Maggie's frustrations of being a married woman all work to create an image of 1950s southern America struggling to find it's footing in a shifting moral world. I loved how Big Mama believed that if Brick and Maggie just had a child, then these problems would melt away. This representation of the Southern ideals of traditional families and inheritances flying in the face of reality is just as telling today as it was 60 years ago. Can't wait to read more Williams. Kindle version NOT exact to the book By Castigo on Oct 14, 2013 This is an amazing piece of work. Williams is a genious, and this play is absolutely fantastic. That being said, I purchased the Kindle version of this upon being cast in the play.

I wanted the Kindle version so my wife and I could read lines with the printed text. We discovered that although the text is very similar, it IS NOT AN EXACT MATCH to the printed paper version of this. I am very disappointed with this, since I carefully matched ISBN numbers. That being said, if you are just wanting to read the play, this is great. But if you want it to match the script to run lines, buy a copy to have paper-in-hand. Typos typos typos! By James H. Norton on Dec 21, 2013 I can't believe anyone would publish this! It is an insult to Tennessee Williams the number of typos, wrong words, and lots of them! I hate to give Tennessee Williams one star so I'm not I'm giving it to the publisher who let this thing through! Tennessee Williams Essay - Williams, Tennessee - eNotes.com Tennessee Williams Essay - Williams, Tennessee link Link Tennessee Williams 1911-1983 (Born Thomas Lanier Williams) American playwright, novelist, essayist, short story writer, screenwriter, and memoirist.

See also Tennessee Williams Criticism (Volume 1), and Volumes 2, 5, 7, 8, 19, 30, 111. While Williams is best known as one of the greatest American dramatists of the post-World War II era, he also wrote short stories that explore isolation and miscommunication within families and small groups of misfits and loners. These stories have often been viewed as simply apprentice works for his dramas, developing themes and characters that he later incorporated into his plays, but a number of critics have argued that they deserve to be considered on their own merits and have drawn comparisons between them and the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Mann. Biographical Information Born in Columbus, Mississippi, Williams was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents at an Episcopal rectory in Clarksdale, Mississippi; his father, a traveling salesman, was frequently absent. After a near-fatal bout of diphtheria, Williams remained a sickly child in the constant care of his overprotective mother. He also developed a close attachment to his older sister, Rose, who suffered from schizophrenia and, later, mental deterioration after an unsuccessful lobotomy. In 1923 his family moved to St.

Louis, where his father was transferred to assume a managerial position. To relieve his sense of isolation in his new environment, Williams began to write poetry and short fiction. At the age of sixteen, he won an essay contest sponsored by Smart Set magazine; the essay, entitled “Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?,” became his first published work. In 1929 he entered the University of Missouri, though he was forced by his father to return home after failing ROTC in his third year. He took a menial job in a shoe warehouse and wrote short fiction and essays until suffering a nervous breakdown in 1935. During his convalescence, he collaborated on the comedy Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay! (1935). After that experience, he decided to devote himself to writing. He began taking classes at Washington University in St. Louis, but subsequently transferred to the University of Iowa. In 1938 he received his bachelor's degree in English. The next year he published “The Field of Blue Children” in Story magazine, his first work to appear under the name Tennessee. That same year, he received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, which allowed him to write his play Battle of Angels (1940).

In the early 1940s Williams was offered a salaried position with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood; he produced several unaccepted screenplays, and was released at the end of his contract. His first major dramatic success, The Glass Menagerie, was staged in 1944 and won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award the next year. He followed this with several triumphs, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), both of which won New York Drama Critics Circle Awards and Pulitzer Prizes. In the late 1950s Williams underwent intensive psychoanalysis to treat his depression, providing material for Suddenly Last Summer (1958), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and Period of Adjustment (1958). After Night of the Iguana (1960), his last notable success, Williams continued to produce numerous dramatic works of diminishing critical importance until the end of his life. His mental instability and increasing dependence upon drugs and alcohol worsened during the next two decades. In 1969 he was briefly hospitalized following another mental breakdown.

On February 24, 1983, in New York City, he accidentally choked to death on the cap of a medicine bottle. Major Works of Short Fiction Like his drama, Williams's short fiction focuses on marginalized or outcast individuals struggling with their own fears and insecurities and is imbued with an air of melancholy and corruption. Critics identify the key thematic concerns in his fiction as decay, disease, dysfunction, abnormality, and the destructiveness of desire. Set in New Orleans, his story “One Arm” chronicles the downfall of the handsome Oliver Winemiller. After losing his arm in a car accident, Oliver must give up his career as a champion boxer and degenerates into a male hustler and alcoholic. He eventually murders a man who had paid him to participate in a pornographic movie. Awaiting execution, Oliver experiences an epiphany about his life, as well as regret over his actions, but he is put to death with “all his debts unpaid.” In “Desire and the Black Masseur,” which is considered an early version of Suddenly Last Summer, Anthony Burns visits a massage parlor and receives a rigorous massage from an African American masseur.

Attracted to him, Burns returns again and again, forming a sadomasochistic relationship with the man. With his consent, Burns is tortured and eventually killed and eaten by the masseur, who gathers his bones in a sack and throws them into a lake. Critics perceive this story as an allegory for spiritual alienation and isolation. In “Portrait of a Girl in Glass,” which Williams eventually adapted as The Glass Menagerie, Tom escapes the claustrophobic intimacy of his relationship with his mentally ill sister, Laura, by joining the Merchant Marines. “Three Players of a Summer Game,” an early version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, concerns the deterioration of Brick Pollitt, a weak, wealthy man who struggles with alcoholism and impotence as well as an emasculating wife. When his one comfort, his relationship with a young widow and her daughter, fails, he is bereft of hope and falls back into his dysfunctional relationship with his wife. Critical Reception The critical reaction to Williams's short fiction has been mixed. Certainly his contribution as a short story writer has been overshadowed by his fame as a playwright, and scholars have often focused on how Williams developed his plays from ideas he introduced in his short stories.

Some have regarded the stories as simplified and sharpened versions of his plays. Many reviewers have found his fiction morbid and grotesque and have compared it to that of Edgar Allan Poe. Detractors of Williams's work contend that he is a sadist who creates characters only to humiliate them, but his supporters assert that in general he treats his characters with sympathy and compassion. Some critics have seen in the stories' concern with the interplay of death and desire a similarity to works by Thomas Mann. Commentators have also examined autobiographical aspects of Williams's short stories, particularly his treatment of homosexuality and family dynamics. Recent studies have elucidated the role of women in his fiction, and have investigated his unconventional themes, experimental narrative technique, and use of symbols, particularly religious ones. Start Free Trial Start your free trial with eNotes to access more than 30,000 study guides. Get help with any book.

One Arm and Other Stories 1948 Hard Candy: A Book of Stories 1954 Three Players of a Summer Game and Other Stories 1960 The Knightly Quest: A Novella and Four Short Stories 1966 Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: A Book of Stories 1974 Collected Stories 1985 Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay! [with Doris Shapiro] (play) 1935 Battle of Angels (play) 1940; revised as Orpheus Descending, 1957 The Glass Menagerie (play) 1944 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other One-Act Plays (plays) 1946 A Streetcar Named Desire (play) 1947 Summer and Smoke (play) 1947; revised as Eccentricities of a Nightingale, 1966 The Roman Spring of Mrs.

Stone (novel) 1950 The Rose Tattoo (play) 1951 Camino Real (play) 1953 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (play) 1955 Suddenly Last Summer (play) 1958 Sweet Bird of Youth (play) 1959 Night of the Iguana (play) 1961 The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (play) 1962 The Seven Descents of Myrtle (play) 1968; revised as Kingdom of Earth, 1975 Memoirs (memoirs) 1975

Question: Maggie Pollit and her husband Brick were the central characters in which classic play and later film
Answer: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF