Off to town yesterday for a matinee performance of the much lauded Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. A friend booked the tickets months ago - this was an eagerly awaited jaunt, spoilt only by the mid-week realisation that it clashed with the Ireland-France match (in retrospect, a good thing).
What to say? It was loooong. And as the culture snob in our group pointed out, I was not 'Wagner-trained', so three hours sitting on it left my backside a tad sore.
I found Adrian Lester, as the drunken ex football star Brick, disengaged (certainly for the first half of his performance) to the point of looking bored. Yes, he looked fantastic, but he just didn't looked particularly bothered. Perhaps this was him playing 'anguished and misunderstood'.
As Maggie, Sanaa Lathan was all outraged sulkiness - with a fantastic wardrobe. Sitting in the front row, I was in a great position to appreciate the series of fantastic cocktail frocks she brought out of her walk-in wardrobe. And the leather padded bar in the opposite corner was stunning. Perhaps my fascination with the set is an indication of how distracted I was.
James Earl Jones - Darth Vader to those of us of a certain age - was Big Daddy, with the girth required. His voice was every bit as booming as on screen - I don't think I imagined the reverberations - and the later scenes with Brick were touching.
Big Mama was played by Phylicia Rashad - or the Cosby Show's Clair Huxtable, the thought of whom, even 2 decades later, brought a twinkle to my brother's eye. Rashad is also a sister of Debbie Allen, the show's producer. She seemed to spend most of her time on stage bellowing, but I appreciate this may be down to the script, rather than any shortcomings in her own technique.
Did I enjoy it? Kind of. I didn't go away raving about, and it didn't occur to me to write about it until today - which really answers my own question.
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