Cat on a Hot Tin Roof2023. 03. 09.
Quickly acquired wealth, three marriages that for different reasons are "roofs that clatter", repressed desires, family secrets, illness, addiction and a woman struggling for her happiness and love. The Cat on the Hot Tin Roof is a unique play about what it is like to be human and human nature. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Tennessee Williams will be directed by Péter Valló and presented on 11 March at the Pesti Theatre. The production will feature Csenge Szilágyi, Bence Brasch, Géza Hegedűs D. Hegedűs, Éva Igó, Csilla Radnay, Péter Telekes, Áron Zoltán and Béla Gados.
Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof debuted on Broadway in 1955, and three years later it was made into a hit film starring Liz Taylor and Paul Newman. The drama was first performed in Hungary at the Vígszínház in 1967 with Eva Ruttkai, Iván Darvas and Antal Páger, and in the early 2000s it was also shown at the Pesti Theatre. This time, in a new translation by András Barabás, Péter Valló is staging the story in the 1990s. "You don't feel for a moment that this is a play written almost 70 years ago. It's perfectly the same series of life situations that we are living today. The characters lie to each other constantly, the family life is full of hypocrisy. So much of this play is about money. And today, here in Hungary too, we have become dominated by a world in which there are few values other than money. There was a very rich man who suddenly acquired a huge fortune from poverty, which is now waiting for his heir... From this basic situation, I think we understand much more today than we did a decade and a half ago," points out director Péter Valló.
The story is that Maggie and Brick's marriage is falling apart, but the cat-like Maggie is clinging on to the hope that everything can be put right, steadfast in her belief that she and her disillusioned husband can find their way back to love and happiness. Maggie will do anything for her marriage: whether it's standing on ice or a hot tin roof... "Maggie the cat is one of the most loving women I've ever had to play. And therein lies her strength: she never gives up. Never. And she's not a nice person, and she doesn't understand why people pretend to be nice in the world when nobody is," says Csenge Szilágyi.
Géza Hegedűs D. Hegedűs, who plays Big Daddy, recalls Géza Ottlik's thought about the performance: "The only real reason for serenity is the cat. There is no other way to tame this little furry predator to us for thousands and thousands of years than with steadfast, unconditional love, without expecting anything in return. With absolute adoration of its beauty - with total respect for its freedom, its independence. If this is done, humanity cannot be entirely lost." As our story unfolds, this is what our viewers will think of as they walk home, in agreement with Ottlik and myself," adds the actor.
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