By Keith Kreitman, Contributor
There are three reasons to see “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at Hillbarn Theatre in Foster City: It is a Tennessee Williams play, the performances are superior and the set is beautiful. Not necessarily in that order.
The role of Margaret, made famous in the movie version by Elizabeth Taylor, is played by a remarkable young actress Loring Robba, who in my view gives Liz a run for her money. She is sleek, verbal, and darn good looking. She handles the role as if it were written for her.
Then there is Earle Carlson as her disaffected husband Brick. Relegated to be only a foil for Maggie’s tirade in what is actually a first act monologue, by the second act he slips perfectly in the mode Williams intended, a cynical and disenchanted former athlete who has lost his athletic skills and his best friend (and lover?), Skipper, to suicide. He is drinking his way to oblivion in order to shield himself from the mendacity of his social class and the world.
Richard Weingart is his father Big Daddy (a Deep South term for grandfather), a vulgar bull of a man, who has risen from poverty to own thousands of acres of the finest land in the Mississippi Delta. A little too strong on preview night, Weingart will probably get it right as the show goes on.
Big Mama is Sandy Purdini Cashmark, a stereotypically male dominated matron of that era, who naively runs about attempting to cast hope among her family about her husband’s potentially fatal illness.
Family and friends have gathered for Big Daddy’s 65th birthday. Besides Brick and Maggie are the other son Gooper (Kyle Green), his wife Mae (Heidi Hooker) and their five little “no-neck” children, as Maggie describes them: Dixie (Taylor Light), Trixie (Kristen Schulz), Polly (Eva Lilenfeld), Sonny (Riley Costello) and Buster (Zack Fineman).
Representing the clergy is Reverend Tooker (Richard F. Watkins) and the medical profession Dr. Baugh (Lance Huntley).
The set, a bed-sitting room in Big Daddy’s plantation home by Darren Hochstedler, is a feast for the eyes, which makes the harsh medicine of the plot go down easier. And Mae Heagarty- Matos’ costumes add authenticity.
It’s a family shoot-out to see who will inherit the rich prize at Big Daddy’s death: the indifferent and dissolute ex-jock Brick and Maggie, or the straight-laced corporate lawyer Gooper, his avaricious wife Mae and their five little children, with another on the way.
This play is 50 years old. Back then Williams got away with his tendency to drag things out and hammer his points over and over. The three acts gets a little bit hard on the seat for a contemporary audience.
Of course, there is always Williams’ elegance of expression, gliding through the most prosaic and mundane of conversations. He even has the facility of easing the F-word into that prose without offending the senseabilities.
On the whole, “Cat” is well directed by John Kirman and the performances easily make up for the overdrawn plot line.
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