Mendacity in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof': Quote Analysis Essay

The Young Vic production of Tennessee Williams’ play ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ directed by Benedict Andrews also embodies the strong female leads within its storyline. This play is conveyed through Sienna Miller’s character of Maggie, a woman desperate in her sense of loneliness. Throughout the beginning of the play, the audience sees Maggie struggle with the gender stereotype that women should make the men “happy in bed” in order to fulfill a happy marriage. Just like Jim Hawkins in ‘Treasure Island’, Maggie breaks the pattern of gender stereotypes and informs her audience and her husband’s mother that “it works both ways”. The idea of sexual preferences flows throughout the play as Maggie's alcohol-driven husband, Brick by Jack O’Connell, becomes a broken man because of his repressed homosexual desire for his dead friend Skipper. The relationship had fallen fragile between Maggie and Brick as Maggie was desperate to regain the affection of the man who no longer wishes to love. Both Byrony Lavery's and Tennessee Williams's plays convey how gender norms and stereotypes are so ingrained in today’s society and continue to push creative boundaries.

Both Lavery and Williams’ stage performances show excellent attention to detail in their designs through set, costumes, and props, however, the two plays are extremely contrasting in how they portray their set time period through these stagecraft areas. Lizzie Clachan’s remarkable set design in ‘Treasure Island’ captures the audience's attention with its constant change. The dark, earthy set slowly unraveled, first giant curving whale rib cage rises to form the outside of the vessel, this is very symbolic of the time period as whaling was a huge industry in the 18th century. Large swinging rope ladders hanging from the ceiling along with an enormous flapping sail that descends down to the stage fill the space in order to reflect a pirate’s ship to stay true to the original world of the play. The stage then rises to reveal a doll’s-house view of the cabins beneath the schooner’s deck, each individual section is occupied with the cast, creating multiple scene changes in one set and allowing the audience to gain a full viewing of Jim’s story moving through the ship. In the second half of the play, the structure becomes the island that they finally arrive on, covered in lime green and dark wooden features only then rise to reveal the dripping underground caverns. Costumes of cut-up fabrics to create the pirate's attire and a tailored suit for the captain together with the old wooden swords and treasure map props, displayed how these elements all stay true to the world of the play. Clachan’s marvelous attention to detail creates, in reality, an interchanging fantasy world of the audience's childhood imagination.

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In juxtaposition to the periodic representation, Magda Willi’s design choices in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ are flexible with the setting and time period of Williams’ play. Willi uses a Modern, minimalistic set of a large raised black box in the center of the stage, covered in a deep charcoal carpet with only a basic black and glass bedroom design laid out. Oddly, Willi makes the creative choice to include a shower head off-center in the bedroom design, staying true to the minimalistic nature and implying a bathroom is still used in the set without needing to be closed off or offstage. Willi’s design choices are modernized to fit the city living style that we see around the world today. The set time period of this play is the 1950s-60s, around the time the play was written with a style of Old Southern lifestyle and wealthy living, however, instead of staying true to the nature of the play, Willi was able to shift the period into a 2000’s modern city living design that screams wealthy without damaging the other elements of the play.

Through the theatrical styles of Physical Theatre and non-naturalism, Polly Findlay utilizes every stagecraft area to its full potential in order to suit the 18th-century style of the world of the play, however, the themes and theatrical styles used to add a modern element that allows a deeper connection with the audience. Non-naturalism is displayed in ‘treasure island’ when Jim constantly breaks the fourth wall to connect and engage with the audience like she is narrating a story, which also helps to support of physical theatre convention of combining the imagination of both the audience and the performer. An actor-audience relationship is a crucial part of any play, even if you’re not addressing them directly, it allows the audience to gain a better understanding of the world of the play. Another convention of non-naturalism that Lavery included and Findlay utilized, was the use of heightened language combined with modern hints of satire and comedy. This is seen throughout the play especially by the comedic relief character of Grey, by Tim Samuels, as he uses a monotone voice with a sarcastic tone to shift moments of sadness, such as, “damn it I am disappointed” into a moment of laughter from the audience to keep them engaged. Both plays have included music in their stage performances although they have used them in a completely contrasting way. ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’s music director made the creative decision to add contemporary instrumental background music to heighten the dramatic moments of the play. This creative element of non-naturalism is used very differently in ‘Treasure Island’ as Dan Jones takes a different creative approach through music and sound, he makes the decision to use live instruments and singing on stage to fit the idealized fantasy world. The extensive amount of scene changes throughout the play is led by folk/pub chants of the cast and ensemble, keeping the style of the music authentic to the play. Both plays take a different yet effective approach to how they exploit their added component of music/sound and yet still stay true to the period/setting of the play.

In ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ director Benedict Andrews, stayed true to the nature of Tennessee Williams’ plays by relating them to the audience’s lives by using the theatrical style of social realism with elements of non-naturalism included in the creative design. Social realism is mainly conveyed through the actors on stage as their conventions include, realistic features of a character's actions, voice, movements, and personal objective. The actors of Brick and Maggie had a fragile relationship that led them to be staged distanced from the audience for a lot of the play. Because of the dramatic tension displaying a broken relationship, part of the audience in today’s society might be able to connect to that struggle, however, in this stage performance, they would’ve had to connect through the actor's use of voice and actions as they turned their backs to the audience quite a bit in the convention of non-naturalism to create the world of a realistic broken relationship. Lastly, like in all of Tennessee Williams’ plays, a dramatic metaphor is symbolized in the play, and for this one, it is the link to “What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?”. This metaphor of a “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is used sparingly throughout the play by the character of Maggie as her character is damaged and doesn’t know when to “get off the hot tin roof”. Both Plays despite being very different have both stayed true to the style of the play yet have taken creative risks to heighten their stage performance. This was seen to be effective by the responses both performances got from critics and the general public.