The Stage

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Published Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 11:35 by Mark Shenton

Adrian Lester has already proved the virtues of colour-blind casting that has seen him playing some of the great classical roles onstage, including Hamlet (for Peter Brook) and Henry V (at the National). But now, in a far more radical step, he leads a colour-specific company in a completely compelling all-black re-imagining of Tennessee Williams’ epic, searing 1955 play that hauntingly re-emphasises the universal themes that resonate through this ever-shattering family drama. Like all great theatre, this is a play that belongs to us all, regardless of skin colour. Only minor tweaks to Williams’ revised 1974 version have been needed to relocate it a new family background.

Sanaa Lathan (Maggie) and James Earl Jones (Big Daddy) in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Theatre Photo: Tristram Kenton

At the same time, it also lets us see a familiar play through fresh eyes, and gives a sterling company of American and British actors the opportunity to claim it defiantly and definitively for themselves, too. This production, first staged on Broadway last year by director Debbie Allen, sees the towering, glowering James Earl Jones (now 78) and Phylicia Rashad reprise their magnificent New York turns as the father and mother at the heart of this wrenching drama, and they lend it both gravitas and grit.

They are newly joined by Adrian Lester as favoured son Brick, drowning in drink, disappointment and defeat after the death of his best friend Skipper, and another Broadway actress Sanaa Lathan, who galvanises the opening scene with a stunning, virtual monologue as his wife Maggie. Both actors mine deep reservoirs of pain, hurt and rejection.

These are two couples who, in various ways, have lied to each other as well as to themselves, and a day of reckoning has arrived when they must finally face the truth, whether it be of Big Daddy’s imminent mortality, or of his son’s own role in his friend’s death and his own unravelling marriage.

Around their stories Allen also brings depth and detail to the surrounding performances that also include Peter de Jersey and Nina Sosanya as the older son and his grasping wife Mae, and a hilarious cameo from Derek Griffiths as a visiting priest.

This is a gripping, shattering staging of a great play.