Our Drama & Theatre Studies students recently had the pleasure of seeing Tennessee Williams’ play 'A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' at The Almeida Theatre in Islington, London.  

Written in 1955, Williams’ tragedy was an immediate hit, running for over 700 performances straight on Broadway, winning him a Pulitzer prize and later being made into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.

The play forms part of the students’ A Level written exam study, so we were very lucky to have the opportunity to watch a revival directed by Rebecca Frecknell (already Olivier award-winning for having directed another of Williams’ famous plays, A Streetcar Named Desire), in an all star cast production with Daisy Edgar-Jones, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lennie James.

In its plot, the Pollitt family gathers to celebrate Big Daddy’s 65th birthday, but behind the smiles is a family in crisis.  With Brick and Maggie’s marriage plagued by secrets and deceit, the question of legacy lingers. As the family confront the impending death of their patriarch, a war of truth and lies is waged.

A difficult play to stage, due to the challenge of finding creative ways of revealing the truth behind the family’s deceptions, the students were unanimously agreed that the use of a pianist on stage throughout the production, whom the audience gradually realised was intended to double as a representation of Skipper, Brick’s deceased best friend, added a clever layer to the play’s interpretation. The production also made imaginative use of stylisation, such as having Maggie, the play’s titular character, stalk across the piano as ‘Maggie, the cat’, at one point.  

Rebecca Lewis-Verebelyi, Curriculum Manager A Level Drama & Theatre said "The students thoroughly enjoyed the production, not least the actor’s fabulous performances and came away with many ideas for inspiration to apply to their own interpretations of the play in their written work."