Review of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat is the Good kind of Wrong
By Joseph A. Whittaker, Plantation Owner
Now those folk who don't believe that a Negro, of sorts, can operate and run his own plantation in the 1950s will be deeply offended by the latest and most erroneous production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Broadhurst Theatre. The discrepancy between the words spoken and the image given is so disparate, so ludicrous that even a white stallion on a load of box springs could hardly make the jump.
You see, there is not a single white man on stage. Big Daddy boasts about his climb to the top, his success as an entrepreneur, a dynamo in the plantation industry. But behind the sensationally Negro James Earl Jones is a pile of historical inaccuracies. “Did he just say ‘My plantation’?”
Sure the scenes sizzle and pop with the latent intensity of William’s script. Phylicia Rashad (Big Mama) and Anika Noni Rose (Maggie) bring a fire and sensuality to their characters that, admittedly, most white ingénue’s lack. Even the stand-in Boris Kodjoe brings a sly, cool to Brick that Paul Newman might never been able to muster.
But these intricacies of the black dynamic certainly undermine the subtleties of William’s text. In an attempt to air a White plantation owner’s dirty laundry, here we have Negros airing . . . well, a white plantation owner’s dirty laundry. So, why, oh why, was producer Stephen C. Byrd and Front Row Productions so compelled to bring us this all-black version of a historically white text? Was there casting inspired by nuances found in the text, such that would shout loud and clear with the juxtaposition of black actors? Were they compelled by the possible resonances within a black community? Were the dollar signs flashing at the chance to reel in a new audience demographic?
Probably not. A simple look at the curtain call will tell the whole story. James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad stand triumphant as secondary characters taking the final bow. Brick who? Maggie what? No, this show was furnished around the two personas of its minor characters. Without Star Wars or The Cosby Show, this production may never have happened. Was the stunt worth it? Did these black actors bring to the text what no white actor could?
Probably not. However it is always a pleasure to hear William’s words, even behind the façade of a publicity stunt. Go, enjoy Jones’s trademark voice and Rashad’s brilliant humanity. But, please, don’t be expecting anything trademark or brilliant about this production. It’s about as apt as a black man singing the praises of his glorious southern plantation.
Starring James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Boris Kodjoe, and Anika Noni Rose