MAGGIE THE CAT IS ALIVE!

Kanata Theatre presents Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -
Tuesday to Saturday March 27 to April 7.

Rosemary Keneford (Best Director: Eastern Ontario, Theatre Ontario; Ottawa Critics Circle for Over the River and Through the Woods, 2004) takes on the challenge of mounting Tennessee William’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Keneford will layer the complex emotional dramas of family lies that will challenge the audience to answer Big Daddy’s (Brooke Keneford: Best Production, Ottawa Critic’s Circle, Noises Off, 2006) question “I’ve got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”

The play is a powerful, highly-charged, moving story of a neurotic, dysfunctional Southern family. The occasion is the 65^th birthday of 'Big Daddy' - the patriarchal plantation head (who is secretly suffering from terminal cancer), when the extended family (sons Gooper and Brick and their wives ‘Sister Woman’ and Maggie) quarrel - greedily - over the expected inheritance. In the bedroom, Maggie’s advances and lustful sensuality are thwarted by the unloving temperament of her alcoholic, injured, and apathetic husband Brick who is still suffering from the suicidal death of his homosexual friend Skipper. Maggie has allegedly seduced Skipper to keep their homosexual relationship at bay. William’s exploration of mendacity and greed, the collapse of a great American Dream, the deception found in the marital bed and distorted family values are as relevant and challenging to today’s audiences as they were in 1955.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was a hugely successful, film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson and Madeline Sherwood. The film received six Academy Award nominations. In the mid seventies, Madeline Sherwood (Sister Woman in both the original stage play and the film) conducted Kanata Theatre’s very first acting workshop.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof runs in the Ron Maslin Playhouse, 1 Ron Maslin Way, Kanata, Tuesday to Saturday March 27 to April 7, 8 pm.

Tickets are $15. The box office number is 613 831 4435. The Playhouse enjoys abundant free parking and is fully accessible. Hearing assist is available. You can visit the website at www.kanatatheatre.com

Memorable lines from the play:

Maggie: I'm not living with you. We occupy the same cage, that's all.

Brick: What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?
Maggie: Just staying on it I guess, long as she can.

Big Daddy: You won't live with mendacity? Well, you're an expert at it! The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love any more. Truth is dreams that don't come true, and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die.

# # #