Laughter in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

[Depaultheatrekid]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 12:42am

I have read many reviews of the show although I wont be up to see it for another two weeks.....there is an enormous amount of laughter throughout the entire play from what I gather and often times at inappropriate moments. Here's the thing : Its something that has happened in the theatre with African-American plays and African American audiences for a long time. Its surprising to me that in this production from some people eyes is that JEJ is playing for laughs.

In his autobiography 'Voices and Silences' he speaks at length about doing Fences on broadway and how the black audiences would laugh when Troy brought on-stage the illegitimate daughter in the play, among many other very-heartbreaking unfunny moments. He argued a great deal with the late great Lloyd Richards about what he thought was disrespectful and a problem. Lloyd argued that, especially at the time, Black audiences were not either theatre savvy enough to understand the "normal conventions of the theatre" or that rather than allowing themselves to be emotionally invested in the story being told they would write it off as funny and laugh at moments not intented to be funny. Jones states that he disagreed with Lloyd and thought that if the audiences were laughing at serious moments it was something the actors were not accuarately doing onstage.It seems odd to me that he would now play into that...maybe its age and experience or maybe its choice just find it incredibly odd again I havent seen the show yet.

Also, Phylicia discussed somewhere (cant remember where) the amounts of laughter during dramatic scenes in the limited run of Raisin. Most performances there were audiences who treated the show as if it were a Tyler Perry play and even spoke at the actors on stage. During the scene where Walter Lee almost takes the money from the Clybourne Park man, alot of the audiences applauded him for attempting to take it and booed when Combs delivered the speech about being a very proud people.

Those are just a few examples I'm sure there are many more. Whatever the case may be this isnt something new that predominately black audiences laugh at things that arent intended to be comic moments. I am by no means excusing it, just bring it to light that it has a pattern.
Updated On: 3/5/08 at 12:42 AM

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 1:02am

I only saw the first preview so I'm sure it has changed now but that night Phylicia Rashad played Big Mamma broad, grotesque, and obnoxious; that was her comic approach to the role and so when you get to the heart-breaking scene where Big Daddy tells her that he hates her (or something to that effect) and that he is the man of the house now, people saw it as this obnoxious woman being put in her place. Of course this is as much Allen's fault as it is her sister's.
Then, there is also the fact that we see James Earl Jones swear and curse, and I think at this point he is such a theater persona that people don't see Big Daddy curse, they see Mufasa and Darth Vader curse, which again causes laughter to some people.
What I found somewhat appalling was the audience's apparent distaste for the women in the play. When Brick tries to hit Maggie with his crutch, people sounded like they were on the floor rolling with laughter, and when he says that he finally hears the "click," there was laughter again. No one seemed to be rooting for Maggie or Big Mamma, in fact most people seemed content when they were told off or put down.

[Depaultheatrekid]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 1:17am

ray-- Thanks for responding I thought I had went off on a limb and nobody got me LOL.......I get what you are saying about Jones and Rashad at the performance you saw....however the moment with crutch seems to me to be one of those moments that could not be taken as seriously as intented and found funny because of the physical action alone.

[OrdinaryJukebox]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 7:28am

I did an show on theatre row last year by a guy who wanted so badly to be Tyler Perry. He wrote a "musical," and I was the only white guy in it. To be quite honest, the white guy (that's me) was the sight gag. If you ever watch an African American sitcom, more often than not the geek, or the nerd, or the idiot, or the anal office worker is played by a white guy.

However, a jobs and job, it's an Off-Broadway credit on my resume, it had a three month run, so, I did it (despite being humiliated for laughs). In any event, it's so true about black audiences laughing at the most inappropriate (and showing up late). In fact, one night we closed the show because no tickets had been sold, and no one was at the door. So, we rehearsed a few scenes, had a meeting, and all started to leave around 8:40 (the show was to open at . Around that time two ladies showed up, and were informed that the evenings show had been canceled. They were so angry, cursing and screaming, carrying on...yet, they never stopped to say, "Well, we would have missed the first hour anyway."

Truly remarkable! I still can't wait to see "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," and hopefully it's not as "funny" as I've been reading.

-Vincent

[Depaultheatrekid]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 12:37pm

I think culturally sometimes it just adds up differently. Like the crutch scene for instant I know people would laugh because of similar situations they have been in or felt similarly too. Not that such a dramatic moment requires laughter but its possible to that someone might find humor in it. I KNOW....I KNOW....but its possible

[TonyaFanatic]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 2:52pm

LOL at this thread....I dont know...maybe Phylicia saw Big Mama differently. Maybe she made a choice to play her broad and grotesque. Just because you have an idea how a character should be played and recieved doesn't mean that's the way it's supposed to be played or recieved. It's all a matter of interpretation.

[lildogs]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 3:05pm

you know, gay audiences can be the same way--maybe it's a form of communion--we/they feel like they're more of a part of the show if they react strongly if at times inappropriately.

There were a few out-of-place yucks when I saw BROKEBACK in Chelsea...

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 3:14pm

Also it has to be said that if there was laughter at RAISIN IN THE SUN it had a lot to do with Sean Combs' laughable performance, which hit bold new eye-rolling lows in a couple of places.

[worrell4077]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 3:17pm

My Acting class went to see this and the next class we discussed it and alot of us said that we liked it and we enjoyed it and yada yada yada and my professor turns to all of us and said she hated it, she thought it just wasn't good. She didn't care for Anika Noni Rose and some of the others but she enjoyed James Earl Jones(she claims she was in a class with him and apparently he studders when he's not performing).

She said that this play really shouldn't have been done by an African American cast because it wasn't written for an African American cast. Tennesse Williams wrote it for a White cast. She said that it's much different with a White cast than it is with an African American cast.

She also said that she thinks Debbie Allen should go back to dancing and musicals and leave stuff like Cat alone.

[TonyaFanatic]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 3:45pm

i say your acting teacher is entitled to her stank ass opinion.

[lildogs]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 3:57pm

Oy, acting teachers...you might want to tell her that Juliet wasn't written for woman, Othello wasn't written for a black man and AUNTIE MAME wasn't written for Charles Busch. Not a very good way to determine casting.

And James did at one time stutter and perhaps still does--I have two very good actor friends who stutter in life but never on stage.

[Depaultheatrekid]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 5:19pm

worrell-- its totally unfortunate that your teacher thinks that. Its mind boggling that fellow artist sometimes have such pigeoned hole views of artistic work.

Roscoe--Thats funny....yeah i'm sure there were a few chuckles at some of his and I use this word very loosely "Choices"...but I think Phylicia was referring to general laughter at the play.

TonyaFanatic, I totally agree with you, also from the clips that total up to about six minutes of actual show time....Phylicia's clips have been awesome to watch. Being a southern man born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama a quick jump from Mississippi I thought her choices were great....she sounded and moved EXACTLY like my grandmother. So from what I've seen thus far she has created a very authentic southern black rich elderly Big Momma.

[imtwob]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 11:50pm

After having seen the movie many times and several stage productions over the years, I went to see the new "Cat" with certain expectations. And like many of you I enjoyed the show but was confused, if not disappointed, by what I thought was Debbie Allen's failed direction of a classic. However, on the flight home I was able to read Tennessee Williams' original version with all his directions intact, and I was amazed at how true this production is to Williams intent. I no longer can call this Debbie Allen's version because honestly I see little to no direction that was not placed on the page by Williams himself. Even Phylicia Rashad's over the top Big Mama is not over played when you read Williams' direction. For example he writes, "the silence is instantly broken by the shouting charge of Big Mama, entering through hall door like a charging rhino." In other parts he refers to her as a "breathless tense Japanese wrestler with shrieking voice." He meant for this character to be played exactly this way and to Ms. Rashad's credit, she delivers. And the same can be said of the others, including Big Daddy. Mr Jones delivers the lines exactly the way Williams instructed. Granted, for those of us use to the more classical version of this play it may be easy to find fault with this production. However, the fault is not with Ms. Allen's direction, she didn't add the over the top deliveries to Big Mama's lines, or all the !ucks to Big Daddy's lines. In Mr. Williams Memoirs he writes about his displeasure with the screen version of his play and was never truly pleased with the staged productions. He also comments on this in "Notebooks," a publication of his personal journals and letters. He always felt it was made to be sanitized for the audience and he didn't like that, hence the addition of the bad language many years and productions later. Perhaps Ms. Allen is correct when she says Mr. Williams would be pleased with this production.

About the laughter, I was sitting the middle of a very mixed audience; black, white, old, young, some familiar with the work, others not. Everyone laughed at Brick attempting to kill Maggie with his crutch. Perhaps it's like watching a cartoon character get blown to bits, you laugh because it's just a cartoon and you have no emotional connection. The night before I saw "Come back, little sheba" and the scene where Doc trys to kill Lola with a hatchet--total silence.

[Depaultheatrekid]

Posted: 3/6/08 at 12:31am

imtwob -- Thanks for that insight....I love that after reading the original version of the play you thought the play was accurate and exactly what Tennesse wrote choice wise as well.

[Mistress_Spouzic]

Posted: 3/6/08 at 2:30am

I have not yet seen Cat on a hot tin roof but the topics initial post made me think of the day I saw Hot Feet. It was a terrible show, but there was a lot of yelling back at the actors- and one in particular was funnier than the line itself. For anyone unfamiliar with Hot Feet, there was a show within the show. And at one point the director sits in the audience watches a rehearsal for a bit and gets up and yells, "You cant expect people to pay good money for this crap!" or something to that general affect and someone in the audience yelled "damn right!" That earned a round of laughter and applause.

Theres probably merit to all those ideas. As far as laughter goes, sometimes it happens when people are just uncomfortable too. It happens at Spring Awakening in the most serious point in the show and why is mostly a mystery.

In an example of lack of exposure... a friend of mine who is a white middle aged woman, saw Jersey Boys with her husband and she looks the part of an experienced theatre goer but when I asked her how the show was, she complained of too much dialogue and no one in the audience knowing the lyrics and singing along with her. She was completely expecting a concert environment.