By Brenda Ann Babinski

In the midst of a cold and dark January, Cranbrook Community Theatre (CCT) invites you to join them in this second instalment of their season, to spend an evening in the hot, bourbon-soaked southern state of Mississippi.

The year is 1955. The family of Big Daddy Pollitt has gathered to celebrate his 65th birthday, a celebration that is riddled with secrets and lies.

Director Terry Miller brings us Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Featuring a stellar cast of performers, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof promises to provoke thought, incite emotion, and rivet audiences.

The play opens in the plantation bedroom occupied by favoured son Brick and his wife Maggie. They’ve gathered for Big Daddy’s birthday celebration but both know that this is not a happy celebration–Big Daddy has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, known to everyone but himself. Maggie and Brick are in a sexless marriage, and their childlessness threatens their inheritance.

The sultry Maggie is played by veteran performer Jennifer Inglis, who shines in the role. The character of Maggie is the proverbial cat on the hot tin roof, struggling to hold on despite extraordinary difficulty, and Inglis moves between humour and suffering, flirtation and cynicism with ease. Her nuanced and multi-faceted characterization brings Maggie to life.

Maggie’s angst and anger is apparent in her struggle to get her husband Brick to re-engage with life instead of drinking himself into oblivion. Sean Swinwood plays Brick with heartbreaking realism. Swinwood’s Brick is tortured by guilt and secrets and his laconic presence emanates palpable misery.

Big Daddy is played masterfully by Alexander Gilmour. Recently given a new lease on life, Big Daddy steps up to take control over his family, first by putting Big Mama (beautifully played by Nicola Kaufman) into place and then by trying to get to the root of Brick’s drinking problem.

‘I’ve got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?’ Big Daddy

Gilmour’s powerful performance creates an atmosphere of fear and oppression so intense that the audience will itself begin to feel as jittery as a cat on a hot tin roof.

Long suffering brother, Gooper (Brent Gill) and his remarkably fertile spouse, Mae (Nikole Spring) stir things up with their spying, tattle-telling and manipulations. Gill gives an exceptional performance as the frustrated, ill-favoured Gooper.  Spring’s depiction of Mae balances the sweet southern belle persona with the conniving machinations of a pro.

The stellar cast is rounded out with the gentle, slightly baffled understatement of the Reverend Tooker, a shared role expertly played by Galen Olstead and Bob McCue, and the compassionate Doctor Baugh, tenderly brought to life by Peter Schalk.

The set, designed by Terry Miller, is both functional and beautiful, transporting the audience to a plantation in the deep south circa 1955.

Costumes and hair are expertly designed by Sandy Kay, and could easily compare to any first class, professional production.

A gut-wrenching tour de force, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof examines love and hate, truth and lies, and dysfunctional family dynamics.

Showtime is 8 p.m. at the Studio/Stage Door, Jan. 20-23 and 27-30.

Tickets are available at Lotus Books.

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