Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (16 page)

It is this “mendacity” version of Act Three that is printed in the 1958
Dramatists Play Service edition, along with a lot of stage business elaborated by Kazan
(also, more partially, recorded in the “Broadway Version” Act Three). The Dramatists Play
Service version includes a violent thunderstorm in Act Three, the symbolic significance of
which is emphasized a little heavy-handedly by Big Daddy’s demand on reentering, “What stawm
are you talkin’ about, th’ one outside or th’ hullaballou in here?” Extra servants and
children are added, with servants beginning the play instead of Maggie; there are off-stage
sounds of a croquet game, dogs barking, birthday fireworks, and “plantation-type” songs by
the Negro field hands; and chants and irritating extra business are invented for Gooper’s
“no-neck monsters.” These provide the wrap-around social context typical of a Kazan
production, instead of Williams’ intense focus on what he calls (in an Act Two stage
direction) “that cloudy, flickering, evanescent—fiercely charged! —interplay of live human
beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis.” Kazan literalized Williams’ metaphor with
actual thunder and lightning, and this externality was taken further in Richard Brooks’ 1958
movie, which also “opened up” Williams’ concentration on the bedroom to other locales and
emphasized the reconciliation of Maggie and Brick even more sentimentally than Kazan.
Williams did not like this film version at all.

To understand why Williams allowed these many variants, it is necessary to
remember not only his concern to get his work out to as wide an audience as possible but
also his extraordinary method of composition. He dashed off draft after draft at high speed
without prior planning in order to try to tap subconscious levels of experience. So, he told
Kazan about
Cat
’s predecessor,
The Rose Tattoo
:

I have this terrific creative will in me tearing me and fighting to get
out and from its own fury creating its own block, so I work more or less blindly: the good
values are from the subconscious, so often when I am finished I have no idea what I have
done, what is good or bad in it.

The advantage of such a headlong method of composition is that it can tap
great originality and complexity of feeling; its disadvantage, as Williams admits, is that
the writer does not always know what the best parts of his work are, and relies too heavily
on others to guide him. It creates great problems, but also opportunities, for collation.

A final text of
Cat
, produced during Williams’ lifetime and reprinted in the
present volume, was prepared for a production directed by Michael Kahn at the American
Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Connecticut, in July 1974, then transferred (with
revisions) to the ANTA theater in New York. This production was notable for an electrifying
performance by Elizabeth Ashley as Maggie that Williams praised as perfect (see Ashley’s
autobiography,
Actress
, 1978). It restored Williams’ original ideas about stage design, with
the bedroom opening up to the immensity of a “galactic” sky, and discarded most, though not
all, of Kazan’s elaborations of staging. And its version of Act Three is an intriguing
amalgam of “Cat Number One” and the “Broadway Version.” Big Daddy returns in Act Three to
tell his elephant joke and
also
its replacement, the “odor of mendacity” exchange (though
the latter was removed for the transition to New York), but we also hear his bellows of
agony offstage and in a film record of the production (though it was dropped from the
printed text) Big Mama rushes in for the hypodermic syringe, as in “Cat Number One.” The
Brick-Maggie relationship is kept enigmatic as originally, with Brick not denying Mae’s
sneer that he no longer beds his wife nor saying that he “admires” Maggie, and the play
ending again with his chilling repetition of Big Daddy’s earlier response to declarations of
love, “Wouldn’t it be funny it if that was true?”

Of all the many
Cats
, only this 1975 version and the “Cat Number One” text
deserve serious attention, and as they have been successfully produced in recent years,
there seems to be room enough for both. Individuals will differ as to preference according
to whether they think the emphasis should be on Big Daddy’s sense of tragedy or Maggie’s
qualified victory. Personally, I prefer “Cat Number One,” but Williams himself clearly
approved of the American Shakespeare Company’s production of this final version and
requested its publication by New Directions.

Pace
Aristotle, what matters most in
Cat
is not the plot but the coherence
of its unforgettable characters and their strikingly individual styles of speech: the
desperately gallant and eloquent Maggie the Cat, torn between self interest and longing
vulnerability; Big Daddy, the no-nonsense planter, trying to face the ultimate denial of
death with his customary blunt honesty; and immobilized and withdrawn between them, Brick,
the self-destructive golden boy whose devotion to “Echo Spring” recalls the Greek myth of
love irreparably lost but impossible to forget. It is these vivid characterizations that
have won for
Cat
its place among the “big three” of Williams
oeuvre
, alongside
The Glass
Menagerie
and
A Streetcar Named Desire
.

May 2004

Brian Parker is an Emeritus Professor of English at the University of
Toronto, where he served as Director of the Graduate Drama Centre, Director of Graduate
English Studies, and Dean of Arts and Vice-Provost of Trinity College. Since retirement,
Parker’s work on the Williams mss. has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright
Foundation, the Bibliographical Society of America, the Andrew Mellon Foundation (at the
Humanities Research Center in Austin), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada.

NOTE OF EXPLANATION

Some day when time permits I would like to write a piece about the influence, its dangers and its values, of a powerful and highly imaginative director upon the development of a play, before and during production. It does have dangers, but it has them only if the playwright is excessively malleable or submissive, or the director is excessively insistent on ideas or interpretations of his own. Elia Kazan and I have enjoyed the advantages and avoided the dangers of this highly explosive relationship because of the deepest mutual respect for each other's creative function: we have worked together three times with a phenomenal absence of friction between us and each occasion has increased the trust.

If you don't want a director's influence on your play, there are two ways to avoid it, and neither is good. One way is to arrive at an absolutely final draft of your play before you let your director see it, then hand it to him saying, Here it is, take it or leave it! The other way is to select a director who is content to put your play on the stage precisely as you conceived it with no ideas of his own. I said neither is a good way, and I meant it. No living playwright, that I can think of, hasn't something valuable to learn about his own work from a director so keenly perceptive as Elia Kazan. It so happened that in the case of
Streetcar,
Kazan was given a script that was completely finished. In the case of
Cat,
he was shown the first typed version of the play, and he was excited by it, but he had definite reservations about it which were concentrated in the third act. The gist of his reservations can be listed as three points: one, he felt that Big Daddy was too vivid and important a character to disappear from the play except as an offstage cry after the second act curtain; two, he
felt that the character of Brick should undergo some apparent mutation as a result of the virtual vivisection that he undergoes in his interview with his father in Act Two. Three, he felt that the character of Margaret, while he understood that I sympathized with her and liked her myself, should be, if possible, more clearly sympathetic to an audience.

It was only the third of these suggestions that I embraced wholeheartedly from the outset, because it so happened that Maggie the Cat had become steadily more charming to me as I worked on her characterization. I didn't want Big Daddy to reappear in Act Three and I felt that the moral paralysis of Brick was a root thing in his tragedy, and to show a dramatic progression would obscure the meaning of that tragedy in him and because I don't believe that a conversation, however revelatory, ever effects so immediate a change in the heart or even conduct of a person in Brick's state of spiritual disrepair.

However, I wanted Kazan to direct the play, and though these suggestions were not made in the form of an ultimatum, I was fearful that I would lose his interest if I didn't re-examine the script from his point of view. I did. And you will find included in this published script the new third act that resulted from his creative influence on the play. The reception of the playing-script has more than justified, in my opinion, the adjustments made to that influence. A failure reaches fewer people, and touches fewer, than does a play that succeeds.

It may be that
Cat
number one would have done just as well, or nearly, as
Cat
number two; it's an interesting question. At any rate, with the publication of both third acts in this volume, the reader can, if he wishes, make up his own mind about it.

T
ENNESSEE
W
ILLIAMS

EDITOR'S NOTE

Unlike the other dramatic material in this volume, the Broadway version of Act Three
of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
includes directions for the
stage, adapted from the production script. The positions and movements of the
actors, their entrances and exits, are noted in abbreviated form, and always from a
view
opposite
the audience. Thus a direction
reading
“Brick XDSR on gallery"
might be
rendered
“Brick, on the gallery, crosses downstage
to the right
—"downstage” meaning
toward
the audience, and “right” referring to the part of
the stage on the audience's
left.
The other
common abbreviations used here in combination are:
C
(center, centerstage),
L
(left,
stage left, D (downstage),
U
or
US
(upstage).

ACT THREE

AS PLAYED IN NEW YORK PRODUCTION

Big Daddy is seen leaving as at the end of Act II.

BIG DADDY
[
shouts, as he goes out DR on gallery
]:

ALL—LYIN'—DYIN'—LIARS! LIARS!
LIARS!

[
After Big Daddy has gone, Margaret enters
from DR on gallery, into room through DS door. She X to Brick at
LC.
]

MARGARET:

Brick, what in the name of God was goin’ on in this room?

[
Dixie and Trixie rush through the room from
the hall, L to gallery R, brandishing cap pistols, which they fire repeatedly,
as they shout:
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

[
Mae appears from DR gallery entrance, and
turns the children back UL, along gallery. At the same moment, Gooper, Reverend
Hooker and Dr. Baugh enter from L in the hall.
]

MAE:

Dixie! You quit that! Gooper, will y'please git these kiddies
t'baid? Right now?

[
Gooper and Reverend Tooker X along upper
gallery. Dr. Baugh holds, UC, near hall door. Reverend Tooker X to Mae near
section of gallery just outside doors, R.
]

GOOPER
[
urging
the children along
]:

Mae—you seen Big Mama?

MAE:

Not yet.

[
Dixie and Trixie vanish through hall,
L.
]

REVEREND TOOKER
[to Mae]:

Those kiddles are so full of vitality. I think I'll have to be startin’
back to town.

[
Margaret turns to watch and
listen.
]

MAE:

Not yet, Preacher. You know we regard you as a member of this fam'ly, one of
our closest an’ dearest, so you just got t'be with us when Doc Baugh
gives Big Mama th’ actual truth about th’ report from th’
clinic.

[
Calls through door:
]

Has Big Daddy gone to bed, Brick?

[
Gooper has gone out DR at the beginning of
the exchange between Mae and Reverend Tooker.
]

MARGARET
[
replying to Mae
]:

Yes, he's gone to bed.

[
To Brick:
]

Why'd Big Daddy shout “liars"?

GOOPER
[
off
DR
]:

Mae!

[
Mae exits DR. Reverend Tooker drifts along
upper gallery.
]

BRICK:

I didn't lie to Big Daddy. I've lied to nobody, nobody but myself, just
lied to myself. The time has come to put me in Rainbow Hill, put me in Rainbow Hill,
Maggie, I ought to go there.

MARGARET:

Over my dead body!

[
Brick starts R. She holds
him.
]

Where do you think you're goin'?

[
Mae enters from DR on gallery, X to
Reverend Tooker, who comes to meet her.
]

BRICK
[
X below to
C
]:

Out for some air, I want air—

GOOPER
[
entering
from DR to Mae, on gallery
]:

Now, where is that old lady?

MAE:

Cantcha find her, Gooper?

[
Reverend Tooker goes out
DR.
]

GOOPER
[
X to Doc
above hall door
]:

She's avoidin’ this talk.

MAE:

I think she senses somethin’.

GOOPER
[
calls off
L
]:

Sookey! Go find Big Mama an’ tell her Doc Baugh an’ the
Preacher've got to go soon.

MAE:

Don't let Big Daddy hear yuh!

[
Brings Dr. Baugh to R on
gallery.
]

REVEREND TOOKER
[
off DR, calls
]:

Big
Mama.

SOOKEY
and
DAISY
[
running from L to R in lawn,
calling
]:

Miss Ida! Miss Ida!

[
They go out UR.
]

GOOPER
[
calling
off upper gallery
]:

Lacey, you look downstairs for Big Mama!

MARGARET:

Brick, they're going to tell Big Mama the truth now, an’ she needs
you!

[
Reverend Tooker appears in lawn area, UR, X
C.
]

DOCTOR BAUGH
[
to
Mae, on R gallery
]:

This is going to be painful.

MAE:

Painful things can't always be avoided.

DOCTOR BAUGH:

That's what I've noticed about ‘em, Sister Woman.

REVEREND TOOKER
[
on lawn, points off R
]:

I see Big Mama!

[
Hurries off L. and reappears shortly in
hall.
]

GOOPER
[
hurrying
into hall
]:

She's gone round the gall'ry to Big Daddy's room. Hey,
Mama!

[
Off:
]

Hey, Big Mama! Come here!

MAE
[
calls
]:

Hush, Gooper! Don't holler, go to her!

[
Gooper and Reverend Tooker now appear
together in hall. Big Mama runs in from DR, carrying a glass of milk. She X past
Dr. Baugh to Mae, on R gallery. Dr. Baugh turns away.
]

BIG MAMA:

Here I am! What d'you all want with me?

GOOPER
[
steps
toward Big Mama
]:

Big Mama, I told you we got to have this talk.

BIG MAMA:

What talk you talkin’ about? I saw the light go on in Big
Daddy's bedroom an’ took him his glass of milk, an’ he just
shut the shutters right in my face.

[
Steps into room through R
door.
]

When old couples have been together as long as me an’ Big Daddy,
they, they get irritable with each other just from too much—devotion!
Isn't that so?

[
X below wicker seat to RC
area.
]

MARGARET
[
X to
Big Mama, embracing her
]:

Yes, of course it's so.

[
Brick starts out UC through hall, but sees
Gooper and Reverend Tooker entering, so he hobbles through C out DS door and
onto gallery.
]

BIG MAMA:

I think Big Daddy was just worn out. He loves his fam'ly. He loves to have
‘em around him, but it's a strain on his nerves. He wasn't
himself tonight, Brick—

[
XC toward Brick. Brick passes her on his
way out, DS.
]

Big Daddy wasn't himself, I could tell he was all worked up.

REVEREND TOOKER [
USC
]:

I think he's remarkable.

BIG MAMA:

Yaiss! Just remarkable.

[
Faces
US, turns, X to bar, puts down glass of
milk.
]

Did you notice all the food he ate at that table?

[
XR a bit.
]

Why he ate like a hawss!

GOOPER
[
USC
]:

I hope he don't regret it.

BIG MAMA
[
turns
US toward Gooper
]:

What! Why that man ate a huge piece of cawn bread with molasses on it!
Helped himself twice to hoppin’ john!

MARGARET
[
X to
Big Mama
]:

Bid Daddy loves hoppin’ john. We had a real country dinner.

BIG MAMA:

Yais, he simply adores it! An’ candied yams. Son—

[
X to DS door, looking out at Brick.
Margaret
X above Big Mama to her L.
]

That man put away enough food at that table to stuff a field hand.

GOOPER:

I hope he don't have to pay for it later on.

BIG MAMA [
turns
US
]:

What's that, Gooper?

MAE:

Gooper says he hopes Big Daddy doesn't suffer tonight.

BIG MAMA
[
turns
to Margaret, DC
]:

Oh, shoot, Gooper says, Gooper says! Why should Big Daddy suffer for
satisfyin’ a nawmal appetite? There's nothin’ wrong with
that man but nerves; he's sound as a dollar! An’ now he knows
he is, an’ that's why he ate such a supper. He had a big
load off his mind, knowin’ he wasn't doomed
to—what—he thought he was—doomed t'—

[
She wavers.
]

[
Margaret puts her arms around Big
Mama.
]

GOOPER
[
urging
Mae forward
]:

MAE!

[
Mae runs forward below wicker seat. She
stands below Big Mama, Margaret above Big Mama. They help her to the wicker
seat. Big Mama sits. Margaret sits above her. Mae stands behind
her.
]

MARGARET:

Bless his ole sweet soul.

BIG MAMA:

Yes—bless his heart.

BRICK
[
DS on
gallery, looking out front
]:

Hello, moon, I envy you, you cool son of a bitch.

BIG MAMA:

I want Brick!

MARGARET:

He just stepped out for some fresh air.

BIG MAMA:

Honey! I want Brick!

MAE:

Bring li'l Brother in here so we cin talk.

[
Margaret rises, X through DS door to Brick
on gallery.
]

BRICK
[
to the
moon
]:

I envy you—you cool son of a bitch.

MARGARET:

Brick, what're you doin’ out here on the gall'ry,
baby?

BRICK:

Admirin’ an’ complimentin’ th’ man in the moon.

[
Mae X to Dr. Baugh on R gallery. Reverend
looker and Gooper move R UC, looking at Big Mama.
]

MARGARET
[
to
Brick
]:

Come in, baby. They're gettin’ ready to tell Big Mama the truth.

BRICK:

I can't witness that thing in there.

MAE:

Doc Baugh, d'you think those vitamin B
₁₂
injections are all
they're cracked up t'be?

[
Enters room to upper side, behind wicker
seat.
]

DOCTOR BAUGH [
X
to below wicker seat
]:

Well, I guess they're as good t'be stuck with as anything else.

[
Looks at watch; X through to
LC.
]

MARGARET
[
to
Brick
]:

Big Mama needs you!

BRICK:

I can't witness that thing in there!

BIG MAMA:

What's wrong here? You all have such long faces, you sit here
waitin’ for somethin’ like a bomb—to go off.

GOOPER:

We're waitin’ for Brick an’ Maggie to come in for this talk.

MARGARET
[
X above
Brick, to his R
]:

Brother Man an’ Mae have got a trick up their sleeves, an’ if you
don't go in there t'help Big Mama, y'know what I'm
goin’ to do—?

BIG MAMA:

Talk. Whispers! Whispers!

[
Looks out DR.
]

Brick! . . .

MARGARET
[
answering Big Mama's call
]:

Comin’, Big Mama!

[
To Brick.
]

I'm going’ to take every dam’ bottle on this place
an’ pitch it off th’ levee into th’ river!

BIG MAMA:

Never had this sort of atmosphere here before.

MAE
[
sits above
Big Mama on wicker seat
]:

Before what, Big Mama?

BIG MAMA:

This occasion. What's Brick an’ Maggie doin’ out there
now?

GOOPER
[
X DC,
looks out
]:

They seem to be havin’ some little altercation.

[
Brick X toward DS step. Maggie moves R
above him to portal DR. Reverend Tooker joins Dr. Baugh, LC.
]

BIG MAMA
[
taking
a pill from pill box on chain at her wrist
]:

Give me a little somethin’ to wash this tablet down with. Smell
of burnt fireworks always makes me sick.

[
Mae X to bar to pour glass of water. Dr.
Baugh joins her. Gooper X to Reverend Tooker, LC.
]

BRICK
[
to
Maggie
]:

You're a live cat, aren't you?

MARGARET:

You're dam’ right I am!

BIG MAMA:

Gooper, will y'please open that hall door—an’ let some air
circulate in this stiflin’ room?

[
Gooper starts US, but is restrained by Mae
who X through C with glass of water. Gooper turns to men
DLC.
]

MAE
[
X to Big
Mama with water, sits above her
]:

Big Mama, I think we ought to keep that door closed till after we talk.

BIG MAMA:

I swan!

[
Drinks water. Washes down
pill.
]

MAE:

I just don't think we ought to take any chance of Big Daddy hearin’ a
word of this discussion.

BIG MAMA
[
hands
glass to Mae
]:

What discussion of what? Maggie! Brick! Nothin’ is
goin’ to be said in th’ house of Big Daddy Pollitt that he
can't hear if he wants to!

[
Mae rises, X to bar, puts down glass, joins
Gooper and the two men, LC.
]

BRICK:

How long are you goin’ to stand behind me, Maggie?