Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Almeida Theatre
Playing at the Almeida Until 1 February
Last week, I saw Rebecca Frecknall’s interpretation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Almeida Theatre.
Chloe Lamford’s set design, all metallic panels and stark minimalism evokes both the opulence of the family’s wealth and the cold, claustrophobic prison they inhabit. The space is dominated by a piano, atop which Brick’s array of liquor bottles forms a bleak tableau of self-destruction while a metronome ticks like a time bomb. The silent pianist, hauntingly perched at the piano throughout, becomes an apparition of Skipper, Brick’s lost companion and buried love, amplifying the ghostly grief that hangs over every scene. While I enjoyed parts of the staging, the stripped-back quality of the production leaves its characters teetering on the edge of full expression.
Daisy Edgar-Jones is Maggie, brimming with barely contained desperation. Edgar-Jones brings an intelligent restraint to the role, lending Maggie a humanity that avoids caricature. However, I didn’t get from Edgar-Jones the desperation with which Maggie tries to seduce Brick in the first Act. I see Maggie as a woman using everything within her power — and that power comes from her beauty and her sexuality — to try and get the attention of her husband. Her choices should come in waves. First, she tries humour, and when that doesn’t work, she tries to be sexy, coy, sad, angry, and so forth. Maggie’s emotions should undulate throughout Act I, which allows the play to remain alive through what is essentially a full act monologue . I felt that Edgar-Jones was at times too monotone in her devices to attract Brick — whether through sex, violence, rage, pity, or any other tool at her disposal.
The costuming does not help: a high-necked slip dress robs her of the bombshell sensuality that is key to Maggie’s power—and, crucially, her tragedy. Only in the opening moments, when Maggie’s allure is given room to glimmer, does the play tap into the undercurrent of longing that courses through her every interaction with Brick. It’s strange for me to long for a more deliberately sexually charged presentation of a character on stage. Still, Maggie’s calculated provocations are central to the story’s mechanics, exposing Brick’s rejection and his fraught inner turmoil. Without them, the tension feels muted.
Kingsley Ben-Adir delivers a luminous performance as Brick, a man retreating from his wife, his family, and the truth of himself. He is all the more devastating for his restraint and physical presence—a former athlete who still carries the sinew of his glory days—only underscoring the emotional disrepair within. He plays an almost unwatchable drunk, none of the Hollywood airbrushing of alcoholism is pictured here. He is sweaty, vile, foul and yet still unbearably beautiful, which makes his inability to face his trauma all the more painful.
Lennie James as Big Daddy is a brash, profane patriarch whose portrayal channels a certain Trumpian vulgarity—self-made, domineering, insatiable. James dominates his scenes with a seductive and repulsive charisma, his looming vitality casting a shadow over his family’s crumbling façades.
Frecknall’s production, while ambitious, falters in pacing, particularly in the first Act, which feels burdened by Williams’ lengthier digressions—particularly the overextended chatter about the “no-neck monsters.” There’s courage in respecting the text, but some judicious trimming might have heightened the play’s simmering intensity. What lingers is the word “mendacity,” Williams’ talisman of deceit. The lies we tell ourselves and others reverberate through this production, manifesting in the silent spaces between words, the unseen spectres of grief, and the aching absence of connection. Frecknall’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof doesn’t quite reach a boil, but in its best moments, it simmers with a potent, haunting undercurrent that reminds us why Williams’ masterpiece endures.
Other Reading:
