Tag: Tennessee Williams

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Large Theatres
Ntombizodwa Ndlovu as Maggie “The Cat”
Image credit Helen Murray

Written by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Roy Alexander Weise

Royal Exchange Theatre

It’s rather apt that this new staging of this classic play about greed, lies and family rivalries opens at the Royal Exchange as the final series of Succession also hits our screens. Director Roy Alexander Weise is clearly fascinated by themes of family dynamics and the ugliness that may lie beneath the surface and bubble up to the surface at any family gathering. There is a powerful moment when the Pollitt family circle in and sing Satan, We’re Gonna Tear Your Kingdom Down (memorable from another family drama series Greenleaf). The stage and cast are bathed in blood red light and the violence of avarice and mendacity is palpable at what is, on the surface a family birthday celebration.

Patrick Robinson as Big Daddy.
Image credit: Helen Murray

Weise subverts the classic text by casting black actors as the wealthy Plantation owning  family. The themes of exploitation, greed, capitalism and pride look as authentically ugly here as in the original. They are timeless and not subject to any one race or creed. Patrick Robinson is a stylish suited and booted Big Daddy, his veneer of brute determination and utter self-belief is softened only by his adoration of his younger son Brick. Bayo Gbadamosi is a beautiful, detached Brick who is weary of his wife’s passion and vitality. He has checked out and no longer has an interest in anything but liquor and chasing the click. There is a potential issue in the modern day setting in that it is more tricky to understand his absolute avoidance of confronting his own homosexuality. Perhaps it is best contextualised in the setting of Brick as a sportsman and football player and his absolute emotional paralysis as that of a man broken by guilt and grief.

Bayo Gbadamosi as Brick.
Image credit: Helen Murray

Ntombizodwa Ndlovu makes a memorable stage entrance and dominates the first Act. Her Maggie is as bootilicious as Beyonce and as lush as an overblown gardenia. She is all women and outwardly confident of her sexual allure but Ndlovu seamlessly also shows her vulnerability and frustration in this sexless, childless marriage.   Alternating between funny and vicious, this cat on a hot tin roof is not to be trifled with. Jacqui Dubois is great as Big Mama choosing only to see what suits her and flitting away any inconvenient truths. Danielle Henry relishes her role as the fecund Mae, flouting her pregnant belly and constantly referencing her brood of would-be heirs or as Maggie terms them…no neck monsters.

Image credit: Helen Murray

Set in modern day, Milla Clarke has created a beautiful set with a sleek bedroom setting and loads of hidden alcoves secreting as many empty booze bottles and wigs as the family hide secrets and ambitions. The huge rumpled bed is a constant allusion to restless but sexless nights in this unhappy marital bed. High above the bed and constantly turning like time is a stylish suggestion of a child’s mobile taunting Maggie. Gold beaded curtains hint at the great wealth in this house but also suggest the binding, suffocating chains of gleaming greed in this luxurious prison.

The soundscape by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite and the lighting design by Lizzie Powell work brilliantly together to build the dreamy, slightly unreal mood of the production. Ethereal echoes of voices and music and flashes of far off lightening or fireworks in the grounds create a great illusion of the space and scope of this grand house beyond this steamy, claustrophobic bedroom. Overall Weise has created a gorgeously engrossing piece of theatre worthy of sitting back and binging on.

Royal Exchange Theatre 24th March – 29th April 2023

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Large Theatres, Memory play
Joshua James and Rhiannon Clements as Tom and Laura. Photograph: Marc Brenner

Written by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Atri Banerjee

ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE

Like so many other productions delayed or impacted by the Pandemic, Atri Banerjee’s vision for The Glass Menagerie altered over the last two years. We will never know exactly what this production might have looked like in early 2020 but it is hard to imagine it being better than this current reimagining of the Tennessee Williams‘ poignant classic. Our personal experience of lockdowns in our homes lends itself perfectly to this claustrophobic image of a home constrained by unfulfilled desires. Like Williams, Atri Banerjee understands love in its many flawed manifestations and allows the intense emotional pain in the writing to be illuminated with the warm glow of empathy.

The claustrophobia of lockdown for so many mirrors Tom who is trapped at home with his Mother and Laura with his true nature stifled and all his hopes for the future in limbo. In contrast his deeply introverted sister is actually more content cloistered within the home than she ever could be in the outside world, as were so many introverts who actually thrived during lockdown. In this memory play, the Mother takes all her solace from the past as this faded Southern belle relives past glories when she graciously received gentlemen callers on her parents’ porch. The visitor Joe is the first caller of note and as such is both a breath of fresh air in this stale environment and inevitably the catalyst for radical change.

All four performances are uniformly excellent. Joshua James as Tom is weary and hollow eyed, bitter and despondent, trapped in a job that serves only to support his family but dreaming of escape and excitement. Frequent evenings spent in the cinema allude to a secret life, further hinted at when he gives his sister a rainbow scarf from his evening sojourns. James is utterly believable with his Southern drawl and dry whip smart retorts. He embodies the tortured young man equally capable of casual cruelty and genuine tenderness. Rhiannon Clements as Laura exudes the palpable discomfort of a young woman far more socially hindered by her neuro diversity than by her physical impairment. It is a thing of quiet magic to observe as she blossoms with the positive and genuine admiration from Joe. Eloka Ivo has little to actively do or say in the first Act yet this actor ensures he maintains an absorbing presence throughout. His performance illuminates the second Act like the glow of candles which Tom lights all around the stage. He has an energy and a physicality that separates him from the others and serves effectively drive the narrative. Geraldine Somerville is perfectly cast as Amanda, the relentless mother whose love can appear monstrous yet comes from the heart of a lioness seeking security for her cubs. Her performance is as brittle as the delicate glass in the Menagerie yet as a Mother she has a core of steel.

Geraldine Somerville as Amanda and Rhiannon Clements as Laura.
Photograph: Marc Brenner
Eloka Ivo as Joe. Photograph: Marc Brenner

This is a gorgeous production where less is always more bar one brief dance scene with Laura and Joe that jars with the overall tempo and pacing of the play. The design by Susanna Vize is stripped back to basics where even the glass menagerie is subtly alluded to rather than centre stage. The simple wooden chairs, the candles and the evoked heavy scent of flowers evoke theatre and home as church like manifestations of weddings, baptisms and funerals. The multiple vases of pale flowers which overshadow Laura’s glass animals also serve to allude to the floral tokens received from all 17 of her Mothers gentleman callers. The heightened drama of the set is the huge illuminated sign saying ‘PARADISE’ which turns through the performance and echoes the church like feel as though a metaphor for Christ on the cross giving up his life for us…just as Tom is being expected to for his family. The staging is complemented by wonderful lighting from Lee Curran and a dreamy soundscape from Giles Thomas.

The Glass Menagerie cast at The Royal Exchange.
Photograph: Marc Brenner

The Glass Menagerie is the 1944 play that was the breakout success for Tennessee Williams and it continues to be a classic that doesn’t date. The themes of family bonds, duty, responsibility and love are intrinsically bound up in the complexities of being different or not wishing to fit with normative values. Atri Banerjee directs this production with intelligence, compassion and perhaps his own personal experience of what love and duty may look like within a family unit. He certainly nails the pain and the passion of love that seeks to find its own way to flourish. Like Williams whose beloved sister is celebrated in Laura, Banerjee is celebrating difference as all the nicer and nothing to be ashamed off.

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE 2nd September- 8th October 2022