Review: DCPA’s CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF Offers Fresh Fire and Familiar Heat

I have a love/hate relationship with Tennessee Williams. It's not really his fault, it's more thanks to my time working for a theater festival honoring the playwright. The work was incredible, but the work environment was, in a word, insufferable. Since then, it has been generally easy to draw a veil over Tennessee Williams in part due to the fact that his work is, IMHO, underproduced in the Denver area. Thanks be to DCPA for bringing to the community one of his most iconic plays, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, playing at the Kilstrom Theatre. 

Directed by DCPA's Chris Coleman, this cast and crew have tackled this classic Tennessee Williams play with the utmost care, class, and cleverness. It is very easy for the prolific playwright's work to become dry in its delivery and presentation, what with his long-winded monologues and exposition of plotlines. But this cast and crew maintain full control over the piece and have crafted a nuanced performance that sits with the audience even after they leave the theater. 

The Kilstrom is my favorite venue among those under DCPA's umbrella, I think because the designers often have the most fun in this theater-in-the-round. Scenic Designer Lisa M. Orzolek lives up to the challenge of the space and the play to create something unique yet familiar to the audience. Costume Designer Kevin Copenhaver's quality work is also on display throughout the play in a similar fashion. 

The cast of DCPA's production have truly hit a stride and work extremely well together as they carry the almost three-hour and two-intermission show from start to finish. As the addage goes, time flies when you're having fun. Williams makes an interesting decision in this show to introduce to us Mae, an in-law, before we meet her husband and blood-tie to the main family in the story, Gooper. Lenne Klingaman as the busy-body wife gives reason to Williams' decision. Klingaman is a standout in the production, giving us multiple iconic moments including her final line of the play, "LIAR!" Matthew Bryan Feld as Gooper does a great job in his roll as well, giving nuance to the circumstances of his character. To convincingly portray the eldest child at risk of losing your inheritance while in a marriage where you think you wear the pants but you don't is a tall order that Feld tackles head-on. 

Leslie Alexander as Big Mama and Lawrence Hecht as Big Daddy were an intolerable pair in all the right ways. Alexander's portrayal of the matriarch is not dissimilar to my own experience with grandmothers, both mine and those who make me their kin. Hecht's Big Daddy, though, I would say was the most ensnaring. He not only tackles the material and steps into the role of head of household, he does it in a way that you recognize his power and watch him concede to the idea that his power is fading.

Adam Hagenbuch as Brick does really well with evoking emotions outside of delivered lines. Especially in the first act, much of his performance relies on reacting to the monologuing of his wife, Margaret. Hagenbuch takes advantage of a large opportunity to add subtle nuance to his performance based on his character's given circumstances. It's very much a "if you know, you know" vibe that works so nicely. Noelia Antweiler as Margaret has, I think, the hardest role in the show. So much of the precedent at the start of the show depends on the woman who fills Margaret's shoes. Antweiler takes the material and runs with it, offering a multi-dimensional performance that ebbs and flows throughout the show depending on the circumstances at play in any given scene. Some would say that a woman's place is in the House. Others would add "and the Senate". And Antweiler's Margaret rewrites the phrase to say, "A woman's place is wherever she means to be."