The original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened 70 years ago
at the Morosco Theatre, March 24, 1955.
The play follows Big Daddy, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, who is about to celebrate his 65th birthday. He is distressed by the rocky relationship between his beloved son Brick, an aging football hero who has turned to alcohol, and Brick's beautiful and feisty wife Margaret. As the hot summer evening unfolds, the veneer of Southern gentility slips away as unpleasant truths emerge and greed, lies, and suppressed sexuality reach a boiling point.
The title refers to the restless character of Margaret, a.k.a. Maggie the Cat, who is unable to find comfort in her loveless marriage to the closeted Brick. She compares herself to a cat on a hot tin roof.
The original Broadway cast featured Barbara Bel Geddes as Margaret, Burl Ives as Big Daddy, Mildred Dunnock
as Big Mama, Ben Gazzara as Brick, R.G. Armstrong as Dr. Baugh, Janice
Dunn as Trixie, Seth Edwards as Sonny, Maxwell Glanville as Lacey,
Pauline Hahn as Dixie, Pat Hingle as Gooper, Brownie McGhee as Brightie,
Darryl Richard as Buster, Madeleine Sherwood as Mae, Fred Stewart as
Rev. Tooker, Sonny Terry as Small, Eva Vaughn Smith as Daisy, and Musa
Williams as Sookey.
In his New York Times review, Brooks Atkinson said Williams' play was a "stunning drama," adding, "one of its greatest achievements is the honesty and simplicity of the craftsmanship. It seems not to have been written. It is the quintessence of life. It is the basic truth. Always a seeker after honesty in his writing, Mr. Williams has not only found a solid part of the truth but found the way to say it with complete honesty. It is not only part of the truth of life: it is the absolute truth of the theatre." (Williams had already been represented on Broadway by The Glass Menagerie, You Touched Me, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, and Camino Real.)
Staged by Elia Kazan, the landmark drama would be awarded the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Although it was also nominated for a 1956 Tony for Best Play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof lost the Tony to The Diary of Anne Frank. The production also picked up Tony nominations for Bel Geddes, who years later played the matriarch of the long-running CBS hit Dallas; director Kazan; and scenic designer Jo Mielziner.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof played 694 performances before closing November 17, 1956.
The Williams play made its way to the silver screen in 1958 directed by Richard Brooks. The motion picture, which largely erased any gay overtones, was led by Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie, Paul Newman as Brick, Burl Ives as Big Daddy, and Judith Anderson as Big Mama. The film was nominated for six 1959 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The Southern family drama has subsequently been revived five times on Broadway. The first revival was presented
in 1974 at the Anta Theatre, starring Elizabeth Ashley as Maggie, Keir Dullea as Brick, and
Fred Gwynne (The Munsters) as Big Daddy.
Ashley, who was acclaimed and Tony-nominated for her performance, told Playbill at the time, "I had the advantage of growing up in a life pretty much exactly like Maggie's. I grew up speaking the language and experiencing that particular class system…More often than not, actors who don't have a Southern background or an extraordinary ear, deliver that all-too-common grotesque caricature or a Southern drawl. [Maggie's accent] is a sexual Gulf Coast cry/growl/moan."
The play would return to Broadway nearly three decades later, in March 1990, in a Howard Davies-helmed production at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre starring Kathleen Turner as Maggie, Charles Durning in a Tony-winning turn as Big Daddy, Daniel Hugh Kelly as Brick, and Polly Holliday, of Alice fame, as Big Mama. Durning, it should be noted, is the only artist ever to win a Tony for a production of the Williams classic.
In 2003, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof played the Music Box Theatre starring Ashley Judd as Maggie, Jason Patric as Brick, Ned Beatty as Big Daddy, and Margo Martindale as Big Mama. In 2008, the drama again returned to Broadway, directed by Debbie Allen, with an all-Black company led by Terrence Howard in his Broadway debut as Brick, James Earl Jones as Big Daddy, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama, and Anika Noni Rose as Maggie. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof last played the Main Stem in 2013, starring Scarlett Johansson as Maggie, Ciarán Hinds as Big Daddy, Benjamin Walker as Brick, and Debra Monk as Big Mama.
The first Off-Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was presented in summer 2022 at The Theater at St. Clements. The Ruth Stage production featured Sonoya Mizuno as Maggie, Matt de Rogatis as Brick, Daytime Emmy winner Christian Jules Le Blanc as Big Daddy, and two-time Tony nominee Alison Fraser as Big Mama. An encore run with much of the same company was presented in March 2023.
Learn what other theatre milestones happened on March 24 by visiting the Playbill Vault.
Look back at 70 years of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway in the gallery below.
