Undercurrents of Emtional Violence

This is less about emotional violence and more about why Tennessee Williams' Cat On a Hot Tin Roof is a fantastic play that I hadn't read until about a week ago. I have this tendency to avoid things that people tell me I would like ("Mad Men," books on philosophy, various movies like the excellent "The Savages"). I'm not sure if it's fear- or maybe I just like to string people along. My roommate has been trying to get me to watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for at least a year and a half now, but I keep putting it off.

And then I remember that she's in it. Time to start watching.

The point is, I read Cat and was staggered by the emotional depth and complexity the characters displayed (well, most of the characters. Mae and Gooper don't really go beyond scheming, moustache-twirling villainy). It's still a relevant play, one that could be performed today just as easily as 30 years ago. The themes and characters make sense. Closeted homosexuality hasn't gone away, especially in the the South- not that that's the only part of the play that matters, but it's still something that demands exploration and investigation.

Why can't Brick connect with his (ostensibly beautiful) wife, Maggie? Is he actually physically repulsed by her, or is it something deeper? He can barely stand her touch- the only way he goes to bed with her is when he's fall-down drunk. If he's trying to deflect accusations of homosexuality, he could perhaps try and love his wife more- there's that quote about "doth protesting too much," maybe it makes his entire family suspicious and the accusations and drama fly out of there. No, though- every time Maggie and Brick are in a room together, he hardly pays her the slightest bit of attention.

Her. Damn, Brick. I'd be picking that up on the daily.

 

Brick doesn't try and hide his distaste for Maggie- but it's more than just her physically being a female that sets him off. Maggie says she slept with Skipper, the object of Brick's desire, before Skipper died- she did so because that's the only way both of them could get closer to Brick without seeming like godless perverts. Skipper is the one commonality the two of them had, the only thing that could bring Maggie and Brick together sexually. Once he dies, Brick shuts down; he doesn't sleep with Maggie, he gets drunk daily, and drifts away from his family.

I can practically guarantee that this family drama is being lived right now somewhere six or seven hundred miles east of here. Not in a cliche way. These are universal themes of love, trust, and sexuality- also death and denial, hope and fear. Pieces of art like this don't come around often. Truth be told, the reason I signed up to present this play to the class was because I wanted an excuse to check it out. "I mean, I probably won't read it on my own... this is a great way to FORCE me to read it!" I'm glad I did. Now if only there was someone to force me to watch Buffy so I can appease my roommate...

read: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof- it's worth it. Get a group of five or six friends together and go for it
listen: Louis Armstrong's "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans"
watch: "A Streetcar Named Desire," another Williams masterwork. Marlon Brando is electric as Stanley, an iconic role that is still being parodied today.