Scarlett Johansson is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Last weekend my best broadway friend Jen came to visit so of course we had to fit in as many shows as we could!  We ended up getting tickets to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Two very different plays that both had celebrities.  I'm writing my review of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first since there are only 3 performances left until it closes tomorrow Saturday 3/30!!

This revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is Scarlett Johansson's second time on Broadway after winning a TONY for her Broadway debut in a A View From the Bridge.  I don't think this performance was amazing enough to earn Scarlett her second TONY but I thought she was pretty good.


This was my first time seeing Cat so I had no expectations for how the role of Maggie should be played.  Scarlett definitely got the catty part of Maggie right, throughout most of the play she left me siding with her husband, Brick, played by Benjamin Walker.  There were a few times during the play when I did feel sympathy for Maggie but most of the time her weirdly manly sounding southern accent along with the distant self-righteous attitude she gave off left me she thinking she was a bitch that made her bed and now needed to sleep in it.

Scarlett Johansson as Maggie and Benjamin Walker as Brick

Benjamin Walker gave a good performance as Brick, although after a while his fake southern accent started getting on my nerves as well.  He portrayed Brick's anger scenes with rage that seemed real and unrestrained.  The rage, which was usually caused by Maggie's mention of his dead best friend Skipper who was hinted to have been more of a gay love, seemed to have real emotions behind it.

I'm glad I caught Cat on a Hot Tin Roof before the closing date.  As I always say, my favorite plays are the ones that leave you thinking afterwards.  Cat definitely lived up to this standard with its reoccurring them of "mendacity," Brick uses the word to discuss his disgust with all of the lies and liars in his life.  It makes you think about the fact that a lot of everyone's lives are fake.  How many relationships that we have in our own lives are full of lies?  However, the further you get into the play the more you realize that part of Brick's disgust with the lies and fakeness he sees in other people is the disgust he feels for himself after rejecting his best friend/gay love interest Skipper before his suicide.

If you have no plan for the Easter weekend I would definitely try to catch Cat on a Hot Tin Roof before it closes.  If you have a student ID the show has a student rush that begins 2 hours before the show starts.  However, the tickets will probably be slim pickins this weekend so I would get there early.