One of the few professional theater companies that takes classic productions on tour and Southern California’s only classical theater ensemble with a resident company performing in rotating repertory, A Noise Within returns to the Santa Barbara stage in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Tuesday, January 30 at 8 p.m. in UCSB Campbell Hall. A quintessential Southern tale of a family whose secrets of lust, legacy and greed are revealed at the last gathering for its dying patriarch, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof abounds with juicy characters. The Los Angeles Times praised A Noise Within’s production saying that the “company inhabits the whole clan with relish and skill; there isn’t a bad performance in this staging.”

In 1955, Williams won his second Pulitzer Prize for Cat on Hot Tin Roof—the first was for A Streetcar Named Desire—a play that was directed on Broadway by Elia Kazan. Written in a era when Williams was pursuing the experimental aspect of his work, the play runs in “real time,” picking up in each act exactly where it left off prior to intermission. A Noise Within uses the Broadway script, which is different from the author’s original in that it boasts the return in the third act of Big Daddy, who otherwise disappears after the second. Shocking in its day, both stage versions of the play differ from the highly censored adaptation used for the 1958 Hollywood film. The stage production contains significant themes of male homoeroticism that are downplayed in the film.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof turns a penetrating gaze on a reunion of the family of Big Daddy, a self-made tycoon who dying of cancer, and his obsequious wife Big Mama. Though the tone is spirited, the mood is somber, for a number of old evils poison the celebration—sins of the past, greedy hopes for the future and a desperate eagerness to avoid the terrifying truths about the family.

At the center of the play is the struggle between Brick, the alcoholic son of Big Daddy and Big Mama who cannot reconcile himself to his wife’s one-night-stand with his best friend, and his wife Maggie the Cat, the embodiment of Williams’ fascination with frustrated female passion. Maggie desperately attempts to lure Brick to bed to produce an heir to the family fortune. Brick’s older brother Gooper and his wife Sister Woman, who have several children, make a hilariously self-serving duo who spend most of the play slavishly currying big Daddy’s favor in order to collect the family spoils. LA Weekly says that, “as soon as the various pathological components of this revolting family are established, the work ignites in a devastating mix of hysteria, neurosis, homoeroticism, treachery, lust and pure malice.”

A Noise Within’s production is co-directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott—two of the threesome, with Art Manke, who co-founded the troupe in 1991 and still serve as artistic directors. Production design has been called “a triumph of ambiance.” Set designer Ann Sheffield and lighting designer Ken Booth create a wistful, understated mood just slightly removed from reality. Norman L. Berman’s original musical score strikes a sensual, bluesy chord, and Alex Jaeger’s costumes effectively evoke the fifties South.

A Noise Within has previously appeared at UCSB in King Richard III in February 1998, The Winter’s Tale in May 1997, Tartuffe in January 1996 and The Importance of Being Earnest in January 1995.

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, this residency is sponsored by KCBX Public Radio 89.9 FM. This tour by A Noise Within is supported in part with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2080.