Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Novello Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FOLLOWING a sold-out run on Broadway, Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof transfers to the West End – to the Novello Theatre where it runs from December 1, 2009 (previews from November 21) to April 10, 2010.
The all black cast will be led by Academy Award-nominee and two-time Tony Award-winner James Earl Jones and Tony Award-winner Phylicia Rashad, both reprising their Broadway roles of Big Daddy and Big Mama; as well as Olivier Award-winner Adrian Lester and Tony Award nominee Sanaa Lathan as Brick and Maggie.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is directed by Globe Award-winning director, actor and choreographer Debbie Allen, who is best known for playing Lydia Grant in the original film and television series of Fame.
In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a powerful Southern family gathers at a birthday celebration for patriarch Big Daddy, who doesn’t know that he’s dying of cancer. In a scramble to secure their part of his estate, family members hide the truth about his diagnosis from him and Big Mama.
Tensions mount between alcoholic former football hero Brick and his beautiful but sexually frustrated wife Maggie. And as their troubled relationship comes to a stormy and steamy climax, a shockwave of secrets is finally revealed.
Jones’ numerous credits include August Wilson’s Fences and The Great White Hope, for which he received a Tony Award apiece, Master Harold and the Boys, Of Mice and Men and The Iceman Cometh (theatre); Star Wars, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games, Sommersby, The Hunt for Red October and Field of Dreams (film).
Rashad’s theatre credits include A Raisin in the Sun, for which she received the Tony Award, and the recent Broadway production of August: Osage County. She is, however, probably best known as The Cosby Show‘s Claire Huxtable.
Lathan received her Tony nomination for her performance alongside Rashad in Raisin in the Sun. Her other credits include Out of Time (film) and Nip/Tuck (TV).
Lester last appeared on the London stage in 2003 when he played the title role in Nicholas Hytner’s Henry V at the National Theatre. His other stage credits include Six Degrees of Separation, Company, for which he received the Olivier Award, As You Like It and The Tragedy of Hamlet. On television, he’s well known as The Hustle‘s con artist Mickey Bricks. He has also appeared in the films Primary Colours, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Final Curtain and Scenes of a Sexual Nature.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was famously filmed in 1958, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick, and Burl Ives and Judith Anderson as Big Daddy and Big Momma. The last West End production – at the Lyric Theatre in 2001 – starred Frances O’Connor, Brendan Fraser, Ned Beatty and Gemma Jones. Read our review
The Novello Theatre is currently dark following the premature closure of Spring Awakening. Its next scheduled production, Stephen Daldry’s multi award-winning adaptation of J. B. Priestley’s classic thriller An Inspector Calls, runs for a limited season from September 22 to November 14, 2009.
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