When the great Tennessee Williams originally wrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955, the term ‘homosexual’ could not be spoken on stage. This play dealt cannily with all that was not communicated in a nouveau riche Southern family festering with envy, circling around their son’s alcoholism as he mourns the suicide of his closest friend and teammate Skipper, with whom he was in love.
In a theatrical milieu where little is forbidden, Williams’ play poses a challenge for German director Anne Lenk. How to translate the humid suffocation and poignant silence of the original?
Her solution is not without invention; she turns to flashing tableau vivants between the scenes, a kind of evocation of a surreal mid-century Americana – a woman with a lampshade over her head sings wordlessly, the stage lit by fluorescent frames. While these interludes effectively communicate the subterranean forces at work, the performance of Jörn van Dyck’s translation of Williams’ text can’t quite rise to the mood.
Jeremy Mockridge can’t quite shoulder the burden of embodying the hypermasculine Brick. However, while Ulrich Matthes might not be the biggest of Big Daddys, his performance has the requisite bite and vinegar. And Lorena Handschin charms as Maggie the Cat, clawing to create some kind of future.
But if not a triumph of casting, the atmosphere is there – and Williams’ trap still is sprung to devastating effect. ★★★
- Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdach (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Sep 11, Deutsches Theater, German with English surtitles, details
