Young Vic | Bouquets & Brickbats

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF by Williams ; Directed by Benedict Andrews ; Designed by Magda Willi ; at The Apollo Theatre, London, UK ; 12 July 2017 ; Credit : Johan Persson

22/02/18

Once again, NT Live offers us the chance to see a noteworthy production we’d otherwise be consigned to reading about. For David Lan, who has stepped down from his role as the Young Vic’s artistic director, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a triumphant swan song, elegantly directed by Benedict Andrews, and beautifully performed.

The audacious casting certainly pays off. Sienna Miller’s Maggie is a standout, all bravado and desperation: strong but vulnerable; gorgeous but unloved. She really is like the titular cat, prowling the room, unsure how to function in a world where everything has changed. Brick refuses to acknowledge her, whatever she says, whatever she does. She talks incessantly, needling and provoking, removing her clothes, painting her face. Nothing works. She’s lost him. It’s a bravura performance, a faultless incarnation of a classic role.

Jack O’Connell also gives an impressive turn as Brick, the handsome football-star-turned-alcoholic, traumatised by his best friend, Skipper’s suicide, unable to accept his own homosexuality. Brick is a complex character, at once the most honest and the most duplicitous in the play. He refuses to indulge the ‘happy family’ façade, makes no secret of his drinking, doesn’t care who hears him rejecting his wife. But he lies to himself about his feelings for Skipper, even when Big Daddy offers him absolution; his own prejudices too ingrained to allow him to face the truth. O’Connell imbues Brick with dignity, despite his obvious descent; it’s a clever, nuanced portrayal of a truly tortured soul.

Colm Meany is suitably awful as the tyrannical Big Daddy, a Trump-like figure whose only redeeming feature is his willingness to accept his favourite son’s sexuality. But it’s Lisa Palfrey as Big Momma who really intrigues me: she plays the matriarch as an infantalised neurotic, who has to be protected from realities she can’t stand. Big Daddy openly despises her, calls her fat and stupid; she responds in a high-pitched, lilting, little-girl voice, her ‘He doesn’t mean it’ lines imbued with the rhythm of a fingers-in-the-ear-la-la-la denial. It’s a very different interpretation of the character from any I’ve seen before, but it absolutely works.

There’s not much to criticise here, although I do think more could be done to create the sense of sweltering heat and claustrophobia inside the house. It’s all there in the dialogue, but I never really feel it. The modern setting means there are none of the traditional plantation shutters and whirring fans, and that’s okay – I like the set – but I think I’d like the ice to melt, to know that the water in the shower is cold, to understand why Maggie is wearing tights when it’s so hot. Still, these are mere quibbles.

If you haven’t seen this yet, there’s sure to be an encore screening soon. I urge you to catch it.

4.9 stars

Susan Singfield

17/06/15

Home, Manchester

Based on Kafka’s short story, A Report To An Academy, and adapted for the Young Vic by Colin Teevan, (though it follows the original text pretty much word-for-word) Kafka’s Monkey is a fascinating monologue by Kathryn Hunter. It tells the story of Red Peter, an ape, captured in Africa and taught by his human masters to walk, talk and behave as a ‘human,’ mostly by aping the very worst aspects of humanity. Over a taut 50 minutes, we follow Peter’s progress from helpless captive to celebrated music hall performer and are left to speculate about the question of identity. Peter ultimately emerges as a misfit, a creature neither ape nor human but somewhere in between, and consequently a tragic figure. The play is completely dominated by Hunter’s extraordinary performance. Make no mistake, this is a tour de force of the actor’s art. She shuffles onstage, her body stooped and twisted and brilliantly embodies her simian character, eerily conveying Peter’s eccentric moves and his stylised way of speaking.

Sadly, the production’s other aspects aren’t quite in the same league. Teevan’s script attempts a form of iambic pentameter for Peter’s ‘human’ utterings and free verse form for his ‘monkey’ self – but the story is short on anecdotal material. The presentation is after all supposed to be taking place in a scientific establishment, which may go some way to explain its curious sense of detachment, but a more intimate approach would surely have elicited more empathy with Peter’s plight. A central screen seems somewhat underused, displaying as it does just one image, that of a chimpanzee. It’s left blank for most of the running time and might perhaps have been used to indicate different scenes – the hold of a ship, perhaps or a music hall. There’s a sparse electronic score, which again seems perfunctory, particularly when set against Hunter’s bravura performance.

There are a couple of welcome touches of humour scattered throughout the proceedings as ‘Peter’ interacts with people in the front row, hugging them, offering them bananas, coaxing them to join him onstage. Hunter also performs some contortions that elicit gasps of amazement from the audience. She’s worth the price of admission on her own, but I can’t help feeling that more supportive staging would have lifted this production to another level entirely.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney