Benjamin Walker, Ciarán Hinds, and Debra Monk join Scarlett Johansson in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF — Page 2

Robbie, that NEEDS to happen!!!

A Rose Tattoo revival is well overdue. (I seem to recall it being considered at one point as a vehicle for Edie Falco) I could see Hargitay as Serafina. The last revival was pretty ghastly.

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Already saw Walker wearing nothing but his hands in Les Liaisons, so unless he drops the hands, I see no point in going. His acting certainly doesn't do much for me.

I like Johansson in films, but on stage, she's a film actress. And I imagine most of us can already imitate Monk's performance without having to actually see it.

I was waiting for that reaction.

I bought a new tie and everything.

Silly Jordan...I keep my top button undone so that I can converse with Jake easily.

He likes it when I call him Jakey. He thinks it's endearing.

Back to topic, Hinds and Monk are going to be magnificent!

Sliding doors, and all. Which Gwyneth are you, Jordan?

I don't understand the issue with Hinds in Political Animals. I though he was wonderful in it, a very real performance and heartfelt. Weaver was the one that I found wooden in the series.

I am so glad Monk will be returning to the stage this season. She was made for Big Mama.

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I can't understand Honey Boo Boo's mom, and I live about two hours from her.

I understand. I just like "showing off" that I live two hours from Honey Boo Boo.

I don't think I've seen any of Ciaran's work where he did not have his natural accent or just a slight variation of it.

"I don't know who Hinds is. I love Benjamin Walker but he seems awfully young for Brick. (I did want Goodman, too, Kad. I love him and Big Daddy is the best written role in the play.) "

It didn't get good ratings, so many people probably didn't even see it, but Hinds played a VERY Big Daddy-ish role in the Summer TV series Political Animals.

Walker is exactly the right aghe for Brick as written (and only one or two years different than when Newman played the role on film). People seem to often forget--much like Chance in Sweet Bird of Youth, that he's not really meant to be that old, just at a point where the promise of his youth is starting to fade (which in the 50s would be very late twenties-very early thirties at most). Tommy Lee Jones was too old for the role when he played it in the 80s. And Maggie should be around his age (I believe Scarlett is two years younger at 28 or so).

In the original Kazan production, Ben Gazzara was 25 as Brick, actually, though from the one clip of him bck then he does read a bit older, and Barbara Bel Geddes was in her very early 30s, but reads the same age as him.

"I love Tennessee Williams and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I will definitely be seeing this production...but I think there are other works of his that I would rather see a revival of like Orpheus Descending, The Night of the Iguana, Small Craft Warnings, Summer and Smoke, Suddenly Last Summer or The Rose Tattoo."

I do agree there. As Imentioned in the Sweet Bird thread, apparently Diane Lane has been trying--to some extent--to get a Broadway revival with her of Iguana for some time now.

Wasn't Small Craft Warnings (which, IMHO, along with Vieux Carre which had that awful New York modernist production last year--are by far my two fave late era Williams plays) meant to get a New York production last Fall? Whatever happened to that?

Orpheus Descending is perhaps my top WIlliams play ever. Peter Hall did a BRILLIANT production of it in New York in the late 80s with Vanessa Redgrave which was later the basis for a TV movie version. It's only on VHS (but is easy to find online) and is well worth checking out. I'm not sure how I could see it topped, and it is a very hard play to do well.

(Williams actually started his massive feud with William Inge--a playwright he was close friends with and helped get produced on Broadway--because Elia Kazan had been helping Williams shape the writing of Orpheus, the way Kazan helped Williams write all the plays they were involved with including the controversial new last act for Cat that he insisted on, and then at the last minute Kazan declined to direct it, it flopped, and the play Kazan did that season instead, Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, was a huge success).

that seems to be it you either loved hist take or hated it. That kind of scares me though that someone who has such a terrible southern accent is going to have such a dialogue heavy one where he will have to use it.