A different kind of cat’s meow - “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” on Broadway

Cahir O'Doherty reviews 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' starring Ciaran Hinds

There are of course certain problems that the play, Williams’s most enduring masterpiece, presents to contemporary actors. It’s 58 years old for a start, and in all that time it’s become over familiar, an opportunity for the worst kind of showboating actors to play it for laughs, missing all the poetry and heartache lurking in each line. 

Johansson’s brittle performance in the role that was made famous by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1958 film of the play, is poles and decades apart from Taylor’s. 

But Taylor’s legacy (she starred alongside Paul Newman) has defined the role for decades, and Johansson does battle with it by becoming something less (recognizably human) and something more (possessed by an anvil brain). 

She’s the buzz saw at the top of the play and at its conclusion. You may not like, but you’ll admire the hell out of her life force. 

Hinds has found an unlikely vehicle for his talents, and gives a performance that seems to startle itself with its own passion. That’s quite a trick and you can expect to be rattled by it. 

The victory of a cat on a hot tin roof is just staying on it, and it’s his.

​
Nster.com