Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams

'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' was a Pulitzer Prize- winning play, written by Tennessee Williams in 1955, and remains to be one of the most celebrated plays of all time. This is a play about a humans' inevitable repercussions of living a mendacious life, merely to fit in to conventional, society norms which try to dictate how a person should live their life. However, under the tense atmosphere of a family crisis, the character's repressed guilt, hidden insecurities and unspoken feuds are finally forced to surface. Williams once stated that 'we're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement within our own skins'. In this play, society acts as a device to keep our inner ...  Read the complete review

'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' is a play written by American playwright Tennesse Williams, and published in 1955. It tells the story of a dysfunctional family headed up by patriarch Big Daddy, who has cancer (but doesn't know it). His son Brick is a former athletic hero turned disaffected alcoholic, and the relationship between the two is examined in sensitive depth as both characters struggle with the truth of their predicaments. The relationship between Brick and his wife Maggie is also central to the story. This play is one I have taught at A Level, and I have to say it is probably the most powerful of all plays I have read. At its heart, is the father son ...  Read the complete review

I chose to read this play after studying '...Streetcar...' for my English A-level, and thoroughly enjoying it. Both that and 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' are very much character plays, whereby each character is explored through their interactions with one another. 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' is about a South American family who are facing a crisis. Big Daddy the 'head' of the home is dying from cancer. Two of the characters are brothers and they live at home with their parents as well as with their wives and kids. The whole play takes place in the middle of the night when tensions are high. The scene is set in a grand ...  Read the complete review

There's nothing more determined than a cat on a hot tin roof. This is one of my favourite books, with so many issues looked as such as 'avarice avarice greed greed', family rejection, cancer sexuality and the breakdown of marriage. The plot focuses around Brick, the youngest son of a rich plantation owner called Big Daddy, as he faces up to his past and pushes his wife, Maggie the cat, away. Added to the confusion are the hints (never explicitly said) that brick is gay as his best friend was gay and Brick becomes an alcoholic as he watched Skipper slip away to drugs and alcohol - the path Brick himself seems to be following. The ...  Read the complete review