You've lost that loving, feline

reviewed

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOFBYRE THEATRE, ST ANDREWSuntil NOVEMBER 23HHHH A FREQUENTLY applied measure of a great work of drama is its resilience to relocation. Macbeth could comfortably be transferred to contemporary Thailand or ancient Greece without losing its resonances. You could even set it on Mars, if your designer had a thing about little green men. But the great plays of Tennessee Williams, of which Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is one, owe at least part of their potency to the specifics of geography, chrono-logy and social setting.

The play occupies a particular milieu: the moneyed landowning families of the Deep South. Williams's central concern is the suppression of truth: the patriarch Big Daddy is riddled with cancer, a symbol of the corrupt values he has embraced all his life - yet his family conspires to conceal it from him and his dumpy, rejected wife, Big Mama. His smug elder son Gooper feigns filial reverence to veil his underhand designs on the estate. Meanwhile his favoured brother Brick, the fallen sports hero, gulps whiskey in pursuit of the "click" that will release him from the pain of denying his sexual ambivalence; while his childless, frustrated wife Maggie - the "cat" of the title - agitates desperately for attention and status. The crunch comes when Big Daddy confronts his self-delusion; while Brick - the only person he really cares about - clings to denial like the crutch that supports him after a drunken injury.

The only way to tackle this material is naturalistic and authentic, allowing Williams's dialogue of repetitions and counter- rhythms to develop its own lyrical poetry. And that is precisely how artistic director Ken Alexander stages this Byre company production, played on a handsome, airy plantation house setting by Charles Cusick Smith.

The best performances are Gareth Thomas's grim-faced Big Daddy and Janet Dye's mean-eyed turn as Gooper's wife Mae. Richard Conlon's Brick might be a notch more rugged; Anita Vettesse's Maggie a stroke more feline; Eileen McCallum's Big Mama a touch more cloying, but there's no arguing with the coherent intelligence of Alexander's interpretation.

Only the clumsy obstacle of a huge sofa at centre stage seriously mars this slick production - but then it's meant to be an an uncomfortable evening, bereft of the catharsis that follows when the truth tumbles out. The tragedy for the characters is that this play is no tragedy.

Copyright 2002 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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