As a first-hand witness, I can now testify to the special satisfaction a college professor of any performance art must have when viewing a former student's superlative work. Last month, while viewing Cat On A Hot Tin Roof on Broadway (the show closes on June 22nd), my wife and I witnessed a graduate of her Essential Theatre program at Florida A&M University absolutely dominate a stage populated with James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Terrance Howard, and Giancarlo Esposito -- among others.
To top off one of our most satisfying nights ever, we were able to go backstage after the performance and shower her with some well-deserved love. While professor and student reminisced, I wrote in her visitor book that she was our very own "Dominatrix of the American Stage," not simply because she's a Rattler who is doing us proud: truly, the woman was just that good.
She was, by far, the best actor on the stage and it pleases me to no end to be able to share a seconding opinion from the number one theater critic in America, Ben Brantley. And I'm especially pleased that I never saw the review or even heard of it until days ago (we saw the play in early May). His New York Times review of this new version of the play, written on March 7, 2008, echoed what we saw one month ago:
Those eternal adversaries, irresistible force and immovable object, clash with gusto in the first act of the otherwise flabby revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which opened Thursday night at the Broadhurst Theater.
The irresistible part of the equation is embodied most persuasively by Anika Noni Rose as that determined Southern seductress Maggie the Cat. [RattlerGator: yes, that's my emphasis but his words] Taking on the immovable duties is Terrence Howard, in his Broadway debut, as Brick, Maggie’s self-anesthetized husband.
Watching Maggie test her will of fire against Brick’s Scotch-glazed shield of ice sends off such lively sparks that for the show’s first 40 minutes or so you wonder if this might not be the most entertaining “Cat” since Elizabeth Ashley had her way with Keir Dullea more than three decades ago. But as any of Williams’s disappointed characters could tell you, life is full of pretty hopes that fade before your eyes.
The play did clearly fade after that opening. Not because of Anika, however. The announcement of this cast with this play generated tremendous excitement. Here's Brantley:
What sounded promising was the matching of performers and roles. James Earl Jones, of the earth-shaking baritone and overpowering stature, as the tyrannical, filthy-rich Big Daddy; Phylicia Rashad, who won a Tony as the long-suffering matriarch in the recent revival of “A Raisin in the Sun,” as his long-suffering wife: it was as if these parts were their birthrights.
Most tantalizing of all was the idea of Mr. Howard as their alcoholic son, Brick. Mr. Howard brought an eye-opening freshness to the perennial screen archetype of the sensitive but manly brooder in his Oscar-nominated turn as a small-time pimp in “Hustle & Flow.” The big question, it seemed, was whether Ms. Rose, hitherto known as an able supporting actress (“Caroline, or Change” and the film version of “Dreamgirls”), would be able to hold her own in such daunting company.
As it turns out, Ms. Rose more than holds her own. She pretty much runs the show whenever she’s onstage, and when she’s not, the show misses her management. [RattlerGator: hello!] Mr. Howard and Mr. Jones have moments that suggest what they might have made (and possibly still could make) of their roles. And Ms. Rashad presents a creditable, if arguably misconceived, Big Mama. But this time it’s Maggie who rules the Pollitt family’s dusty old house of lies.
Maggie ruled, no doubt about it. Like a dominatrix who will not be denied:
And at other times, seductress supreme:
Having never seen "Cat," on the stage or in film, I was in the audience literally screaming (in my mind) at Brick, "What the hell is wrong with you man, get on it!" But there's some hidden "bidness" going on here:
Maggie, as you may recall, has an exceptionally clear through line for a Williams character. She has to make her husband, long absent from her bed, have sex with her again. This is because: 1) she really loves him; 2) a woman has her needs; 3) if she doesn’t conceive a child, it’s possible that the estate of the terminally ill Big Daddy will go to his other son, Gooper (Giancarlo Esposito), who has an annoyingly fertile and conniving wife (Lisa Arrindell Anderson).
It’s the hot-and-bothered aspect of Maggie that originally made “Cat” a succès de scandale. But it was her unyielding will to survive that most interested Williams.
Though Ms. Rose wears a slinky slip as beguilingly as Ms. Taylor did [RattlerGator: oh yes!], it’s her take-charge energy and unembarrassed directness that make this Maggie such a stimulating presence. When she exclaims, “Maggie the cat is alive!,” you can only nod in admiring agreement.
The play’s first act has always been Maggie’s, an aria of insistence and supplication directed at Brick, who, having broken his leg, is a captive audience. But what a perfect audience Mr. Howard’s Brick is here, doing his best (and understandably failing) to tune out a wife who keeps prodding open wounds — like his suspicious closeness to his best friend, Skipper.
This gay angle, or possibly gay angle, was a complete surprise to me. I was thrown off a bit by this and I don't think I've resolved it in my mind and I've come to conclude that Tennessee Williams more than likely intentionally designed it to be unresolvable: did or didn't something sexual happen? Who the hell knows? But it is the kind of thing that grown-ass men cannot discuss. Especially Southern men. Black Southern men? Even moreso. I believe this is where Debbie Allen and the rest of the cast (other than Anika, of course) began their failure. Brantley praised and then criticized Terrance Howard's characterization of Brick:
Brick is often played [RattlerGator: here he means, historically played] in the first act with robotic disaffection. Mr. Howard is more visibly amused, disgusted and drunk than any Brick I’ve seen. You’re always aware that the click into numbness he aspires to has yet to arrive, lending a livelier than usual dynamic to his avoidance of Maggie.[RattlerGator: and, like Brantley, I thought that worked really well]
The problem is that by the second act, when Big Daddy and Brick confront the truth together, Mr. Howard is wearing his character’s pain all too palpably, mopping his eyes and tearfully bleating his lines. This turns Brick into a wounded little boy instead of the willfully numbed creature he must be to challenge Big Daddy into anger.
By the time we saw the play, two months had passed since this review was published and that aspect of Brick had been ditched. But the Big Daddy and Brick stuff still didn't quite work and it affected the rest of the production. Brantley said, "The production acquires a haze of sentimentality that makes it soft when it should be sharp." Because of the outrageously bad characterization by Lisa Arrindell Anderson (beautiful woman, talented actor -- I have no idea how she could conceive of "Mae" so poorly), the production also took on the feel of a sitcom. Mae was entirely played as a sitcom character. That's not good thing on Broadway, I'd imagine, and it seemed entirely inappropriate to me. Brantley faults Esposito and James Earl Jones for this sitcom aspect, too, but it really was (in the production we saw) Mae who threw everything off. To me, that has to be laid at the feet of Debbie Allen.
Unable to navigate the father-son dynamic, unable to properly dance with the question of innocuous, misunderstood brother-love versus closeted, repressed gay love, and unable to show some basic character love to Mae (the child-bearing wife of the other son, Gooper), the play really slipped into something of a mess.
Brantley's closing two paragraphs are music to my ears:
I will admit that I have yet to see a perfectly balanced “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” What I recall of Anthony Page’s version in 2003 is Mr. Beatty’s magnificent Big Daddy.
But Williams wrote that with “Cat” he was “trying to catch the true quality of experience in a group of people, that cloudy, flickering, evanescent — fiercely charged! — interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis.” The only fiercely charged element at the Broadhurst is Ms. Rose’s Maggie. This “Cat” cries out for more lightning.
Yeah, baby.
From the press conference heralding the revival of "Cat," here's a brief snippet of Anika addressing what she anticipated bringing to her character and the show:
So true! And now, just to give you a little bit of the flavor of this educated woman and dynamic actor, take a close listen to her interview on WNYC radio during the run of "Cat:"
Wasn't that magnificent? Can you tell I'm a big fan? Of course you can. How about a few closing pictures of this fully formed star?
[1] Simply beautiful:
[2] And sexy too:
[3] Next year, you'll have the chance to see her in an HBO continuing series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Set in Botswana, Southern Africa, and originally conceived as a feature-length movie, that production has already aired in the U.K. on the BBC and will air next year in America as the first episode of the HBO series. Anika plays the secretary (Mrs. Makutsi) of the main character (Mrs. Ramotse), played by Philadelphia super singer Jill Scott.
[4] Anika with Jill Scott and Lucian Msamati:
Congratulations to a very deserving woman. I pray that she finds a way to maintain a personal peace and contentment to match her professional success.
good read thanks
Posted by: Acai Diet | December 11, 2008 at 03:32 PM
Anika Noni Rose is an excellent person. She seems so down to earth and her new character Mma Makutsi is a hoot! Love her.
Posted by: Patrice | April 27, 2009 at 08:55 PM
Patrice, that character is CRAZY quirky. I know how beautiful Anika is and I've struggled to allow the character to "be," if you know what I mean. I'm also struggling to allow the show to "be" as well. My particular American mindset wishes it was set in another locale -- such as Cape Town or Johannesburg -- but that may simply be me.
Next week, if I can find the time, I may try and survey some Rattlers who are certainly watching the show and compile some comments for a blog post.
Posted by: RattlerGator | April 28, 2009 at 01:09 PM