by dick kerekes dickkerekes@yahoo.com
St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre opened Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It will be on the stage at the Joukowsky Family Foundation Center for the Performing Arts at 11 Old Mission Ave in downtown St. Augustine until March 4. This play is over 50 years old, yet it remains as popular as it ever was. The first four performances last year at Limelight were all sold out or close to it. What is the secret? Good writing is important, and equally important is subject matter. You obviously can go wrong with sex, greed, violence, alcoholism and homosexuality!!
This powerful play is mostly about greed and deception in a patriarchal Southern family. Big Daddy is dying. Members of his family greedily attempt to capture his inheritance tearing the family apart.
The first act is mainly about Big Daddy’s alcoholic ex-jock son Brick, his sultry wife Maggie and their desires. Allyn Dennis is excellent as Brick, handsome and athletic looking, one can see why Maggie wants to share his life and his bed. Through two acts, Brick consumes an enormous amount of alcohol (judging from the empty bottles Maggie carries off.) I would have liked to see Mr. Dennis more affected by his indulgence, with perhaps some slurred words or a bit of unsteadiness.
The first act belongs to Maggie and her monologues as she talks to Brick. Emily Gerbino as Maggie rates an “A” in acting and in the all-important “slip” category.
What do I mean? Maggie walks around for an hour in a sexy white slip, and I guarantee gentlemen, if you remember nothing else about this play you will always be able to conjure up the vision of Maggie. (I have 20 years of Maggie’s filed away for instant recall.)
In act two, Big Daddy comes on the scene in the person of Robert Gill. Boy does he come on strong, as a bombastic bully but you have to remember he was a poor boy and worked to scratch out his fortune by himself. He had no lottery winnings or rich relatives. Big Daddy may be dying of cancer, but I feared for Gill’s health and heart since he puts so much energy into the role. Big Daddy is so quotable: “Truth is pain and sweat and paying bills and making love to a woman that you don’t love any more.”
I just loved Marilyn Baker as Big Mamma, the much maligned, mousy and materialistic wife. Kirstin Pidcock is also wonderful as Mae, Daddy’s daughter in law, who wants to gain the inheritance and uses her two bratty kids as a ploy.
Daniel Owen Dungan is Big Daddy’s other son, Gooper, totally unloved by the family; he seeks to use his knowledge as an attorney to gain the riches.
Three cameo roles are very well cast. Trina Marleese Parham truly fills the bill as Lacey, a maid in a rich man’s household. Tommy Bledsoe has his moments as Reverend Tooker, who takes off when the going gets tough. Bob Fernee looks vary much like a small town doctor as he enters to give the bad news about Big Daddy’s health.
I am not sure which set of children I saw since there were four in the cast that alternate the two roles each performance. Filling the roles are, Joseph Corry, Kjastie Corry, Dulcinea Hellings and Madeline Pidcock.
Britt Corry, an instructor in Theatre Arts at Flagler College, is back directing his second show at Limelight. He did the outstanding hit Of Mice and Men last season.
He has chosen an award-winning cast and each one looks perfect for their role. The actors project well except for the very last scene in the play, when an intimate scene takes place and the two actors just speak too softly to be heard. If we can’t hear it, we can’t appreciate it.
Stacey Capo has done her homework as costumer, and has everyone wearing just the right apparel for 1950s Mississippi.
Set Designer Scott Ashley’s plantation bedroom with a veranda across the front of the stage and on the right, is intoxicating. I mean you just want to look at it and look at it. I wanted to jump up on stage into that big brass bed. The lighting for set is impressive as well.
Of Mice and Men had turn away crowds, and I predict that this play will be the same, so reserve early. Tennessee Williams likes to repeat expressions in this play and you will hear “cat on a hot tin roof” and “spastic colon” several times. You will also add a word to your vocabulary, “mendacity.” And that is no lie.
Will someone e-mail me the answer to a question.Since Tennessee Williams is dead and can’t give me the answer. Big Daddy has 10,000,000 dollars, and 28,000 acres of the finest land. Why then does he not have air conditioning in this mansion in 1955?
Call 825-1164 for reservations but do so quickly, since this show is a hit.
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