Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
September 7, 2017. Apollo Theatre.
The story of Maggie and Brick. She’s the sexy cat, he’s the high school hero turned alcoholic by confusion, guilt and anger over his relationship with his best friend.
Seems the best friends were probably gay but couldn’t/refused to admit it in the 1950s Deep South, so when Skipper confronted Brick it went catastrophically wrong. Skipper sleeps with Maggie and then kills himself. Brick becomes a heavy alcoholic searching for the calming click that whisky can bring refusing to sleep with his wife. And Maggie becomes crazed and desperate in her quest for the perfect marriage with her hero and a child that will secure their future inheritance.
Sounds good right? With this as the back story building tension it should be, but it wasn’t. I didn’t believe the relationship between Maggie (Sienna Miller) and Brick (Jack O’Connell).
The best bit of the evening was the second act with Brick and his father Big Daddy (Colm Meaney) having a come to Jesus conversation. Big Daddy has been told he’s not dying of cancer so he’s back in the game and ready to fix his favourite son. O’Connell came to life acting with Meaney. The pair sparred and spatted brilliantly. Meaney bringing some wonderful gravitas to what, until that point, felt like directing by numbers and too staged. My fellow theatre geek described it as looking like a Vogue shoot.
The much reported upon nudity felt a little gratuitous. Fair play to O’Connell for spending all of the first half either naked or wearing a towel – quite the balancing act paired with a crutch. And his portrait of a drunk is physically very good.
I couldn’t help but feel this would have been so much better staged at the Young Vic. The director could’ve stopped trying to tick the clever boxes. You’re going to fill a big West End theatre cos of the big names so keep it simple and stop with the dross gloss.
Also I feel Miller isn’t ready for these big roles. She needs more time to develop her craft and not be constantly in the spotlight. As my fellow geek said we’ve seen a wonderful Hedda Gabler this year and this doesn’t compare.
3/5 Style over substance. But I feel this suited the audience of financiers and their mistresses.
