Roy Alexander Weise does not overtly change the setting of Tennessee Williams’s feverish classic, but he does blur the edges. The director has said this Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is set now, but he maintains its humid deep south atmosphere as the fans turn languidly over Milla Clarke’s spare white set and the anxious characters come and go in their Sunday best.
Much of it feels like the 1950s of the original, except off-stage someone is playing Aretha Franklin and, on-stage, Big Daddy (a dapper Patrick Robinson) interrupts his vaping to describe a sexual fantasy set to a hip-hop rhythm. The family might carry themselves with the timeless authority of a wealthy elite but they also know their 50 Cent and Rihanna.
The blurring makes room for Big Daddy to be black while having high social status and owning a 68,000-acre plantation in the Mississippi Delta. His wealth (increased from $10m to $80m) has presumably not been amassed on the back of slave labour. His sense of entitlement and bullish authority are nonetheless the equal of any white capitalist.
Meanwhile, the scheming of the younger generation to inherit the estate, be it the stinging sarcasm of Maggie (Ntombizodwa Ndlovu) or the self-righteous grasping of her sister-in-law Mae (Danielle Henry), could be from Succession. The change makes the play less about a particular type of establishment family running scared from its own hypocrisy, than a more general account of the corruptibility of wealth.
If it shows the play in a fresh light, it also mutes themes embedded in the original. You have no trouble seeing Brick (Bayo Gbadamosi) as a modern-day sports reporter who has turned to drink; brooding and taciturn as he tries to shut out the sexually charged chatter around him. It is more of a strain, though, to see why he finds being gay so debilitating, or why it poses such a threat to the family.
There are smaller details, such as the story of Big Daddy’s trip to Europe with the formidable Big Mama (Jacqui Dubois), that ring less true out of context. The lack of specifics takes some of the steam out of this pressure-cooker drama, making it long-winded where it could be lacerating.
At the Royal Exchange, Manchester, until 29 April
