• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Big Daddy (John Goodman) confronts his alcoholic son, Brick (Jeremy Davidson), in the Geffen Play

As a array of contemporary films and TV shows like “Desperate Housewives” point out, nearly every family has its own secrets and lies meant to keep up appearances – a fact Tennessee Williams was all too familiar with when he wrote his play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in 1955. The play, currently at the Geffen Playhouse through Dec. 18, is the dark tale of a family gathering on the Southern estate of the family patriarch, Big Daddy (John Goodman), to celebrate his birthday as cancer threatens to take his life. His impending death ignites an entertaining battle between his daughters-in-law, Maggie the Cat (Jennifer Mudge) and Mae (Kirsten Potter) to secure the rights to Big Daddy’s land and wealth after his dies. Meanwhile, his younger son, Maggie’s husband Brick (Jeremy Davidson), looks on indifferently at his family’s struggles, all the while clutching a continually replenished glass of alcohol. The entire play takes place in the room shared by Maggie and Brick, and it does not take long to realize that whatever image Big Daddy’s family has tried to create, it will shatter in this room. Even Big Daddy, to whom doctors and family members have been lying, telling him his failing health is only a spastic colon, cannot begin to celebrate his temporary relief from mortality because he is pummeled by signs that his family is not only falling apart, but has been living with lies for years. His favorite son is an alcoholic, possibly homosexual, dislikes his wife, and claims they never had a good father-son relationship. And Big Daddy cannot ignore the greedy eyes with which his family eyes his fortune. As Big Daddy, Goodman does not enter the play until the second act, during a scene that becomes a constantly interrupted dialogue between him and Brick. The interruptions by Potter, who plays a perpetually pregnant housewife, are welcome because of the charming, smiling way she delivers snide comments to the childless Maggie about just how much Big Daddy loves her pack of kids. Her subsequent eavesdropping is hilarious. But Goodman’s performance as the hillbilly-turned-business tycoon family patriarch commands the full attention of the audience and makes one note his absence when he leaves the stage. He perfectly captures the nuances of a man who is often abusive and egotistical (he barks out orders and four-letter words at the members of his family and demands their respect) but who also has a vulnerable, sensitive side which he slips into at unexpected moments. Indeed, it is hard not to feel pity for a man who is mercilessly forced to accept the reality that his family is completely dysfunctional during what may be the final weeks of his life. And while many of the words coming out of Big Daddy’s mouth are offensive or belittling to his family, in the style of a Southern backwoods father, he also shows a deep affection and compassion for a son who is choosing to waste his life away as a drunk. You gain respect for Big Daddy when Goodman confidently delivers his simple yet significant philosophies about man’s selfishness and primitiveness, and his understanding that a person cannot take back a life once it has been spent. Despite playing a crude or even vulgar man, Goodman is able to create a character who demands sympathy for his human fear of death and his frustration with his shortcomings as a father. He even sounds rather heroic in his honest attempts to love his son despite his failings, as well as his ardent desire to live life to the fullest and see that his family does, too. Big Daddy’s emotional fluctuations and unstable personality make for a dialogue that is much more engaging than that between Brick and Mae in the first and last acts. While Mudge, as Maggie, certainly looks the part of a Southern belle with a crazy streak, her performance is not especially engaging and drags on rather flatly. Largely devoid of action, Brick and Mae’s conversation about how she is going crazy because he will not sleep with her or do anything to secure his father’s wealth turns into an endurance test from which Goodman’s stage entrance is a welcome relief. And from the first moment he takes the stage, Goodman does not fail to delight and captivate in this brutally honest portrait of a family forced to confront the lies on which their relationships have been built.

– Jess Rodgers