This has been the version used for most subsequent revivals, which have been numerous.īarbara Bel Geddes as Maggie in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)Ī family in the American South is in crisis, especially the husband and wife Brick and Margaret (usually called Maggie or 'Maggie the Cat'), and the crisis unspools with Brick's family over the course of one evening's gathering at the family estate in Mississippi. Williams made substantial excisions and alterations to the play for a revival in 1974. The play was adapted as a motion picture of the same name in 1958, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick, with Burl Ives and Madeleine Sherwood recreating their stage roles. The original production starred Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives and Ben Gazzara. Dialogue throughout is often written using nonstandard spelling intended to represent accents of the Southern United States. Set in the 'plantation home in the Mississippi Delta' of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie the 'Cat', Brick's wife.Ĭat on a Hot Tin Roof features motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression and death. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. The play, an adaptation of his 1952 short story 'Three Players of a Summer Game', was written between 19.

Death, mendacity, relationships, loneliness, homosexuality, alcoholismīrick and Margaret's room on the Pollitt plantation in MississippiĬat on a Hot Tin Roof is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams.

The cat on the hot roof