Photo by Joan Marcus

Fans of women-in-prison flicks should take note: Rob Ashford’s latest Broadway revival of the seminal Tennessee Williams work Cat on a Hot Tin Roof conjures up a woman who’s all boxed in.

The inmate in question is the inimitable Maggie Pollitt, better known as Maggie the Cat, the wantonly desperate woman conniving to reclaim the sexual spark and family fortune which first drew her to the tormented Brick, a fallen football star besotted by booze and ghosts from the past, as well as a few spirits who can only be found in bottle form. But beyond designer Christopher Oram’s cavernously cage-like bedroom set, there are other forces limiting the rich storytelling potential of these two long-suffering Southerners. Those would be their portrayers, Scarlett Johansson and Benjamin Walker, who, despite earnest intentions, wobble through their portrayals as would a drunk driver who’s just been pulled over and forced to do a sobriety test.

Unfortunately, Ashford makes for a lesser policeman when it comes to this Williams show, admittedly a protracted work but one that revels in its depiction of loneliness and liars. Williams’ entire first act is devoted to Maggie’s machinations to get a rise out of her husband – interpret that every which way you will – who seems more than a little attached to his late friend, Skipper. His language is rich and poetic, and requires a performer who can imbue his cadences with melodic cunning. Johansson, struggling with both her voice and her inconsistently calibrated Southern accent, cannot fit that bill. The actress, long a Maxim magazine favorite, has always been a Hollywood sex object, which makes her an understandable casting choice for a commercial run. But her sultriness has largely been a calculated marketing move rather than the organic result of on-screen sensuality, and in a role like Maggie, where she needs it the most, she falls flat. Cats, as the play declares, may land uninjured, but this one certainly does damage to her point of impact. Her scenes, saddled with a breathy and forced delivery, feel redundant and circular when they should begin to allow her claws to emerge. From the outset, her Maggie is so strong one wonders if she even needs a husband. There is no desperation to her – lines that should be beseeching become a mere lecture. And later scenes, as she plays a subtle bargaining game for dying Big Daddy’s money against her in-laws Gooper and Mae (a quite convincing Emily Bergl and Michael Park), lack the needed emotional leverage.

And what about those scenes with Big Daddy (Ciarán Hinds)? Ashford brings an inappropriate amount of tragedy at the notion of a family who will lie to the terminally ill paterfamilias to spare his feelings. This Cat fails to make the point of how lies can destroy more than they protect. While Debra Monk’s Big Mama is a proper blend of comic relief and period window dressing, Hinds is over-the-top, out of period, and oddly stylized in a goatee and with slicked-back hair. He’s so full of bombast that he never opens a window into Big Daddy’s hidden vulnerability.

And yet any production of Cat can be saved with a strong enough Brick – and yet Walker struggles to wrestle all of Brick’s conflicting emotions to the ground. Though the character must repress a litany of emotions – he’s a suicidal closet case – he still must telegraph his character’s yearning and frustrations. This Brick is oddly cold, lacking chemistry with both Hinds and Johansson. As with the character of Hal in the also recently-revived ‘50s relic Picnic, Ashford fetishizes Walker’s chiseled body. Before the actor even emerges from the Pollitt bathroom, steam pours in from offstage. That’s a cheap trick and a telltale sign of weakness in Cat. Its leading man and woman must first be capable of generating their own heat.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Richard Rodgers Theater, 226 West 46th Street. http://www.catonahottinroofbroadway.com/.  Through March 30.

ACTRESS reflects ON SCARLETT JOHANSSON, STUDENT LOANS, the tv hit ‘glee’ AND TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

By Angela Barbuti

Debra Monk has a résumé most actresses can only dream of—with roles on Glee, NYPD Blue and Grey’s Anatomy—and those are just her television credits. The 63-year-old has just opened on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof along with Scarlett Johansson, a production that runs until March. A self-proclaimed late bloomer in the industry, Monk represents a true New York success story. After stints waiting tables and working as a secretary, she finally made a name for herself and eventually won both a Tony and Emmy for her work.

How did you get started as an actress?
I had never even seen a play; my family didn’t have that kind of money. I grew up in a suburb of Washington, D.C. After graduating from high school, I became a secretary and didn’t know what I was going to do. I hated working as a secretary, so I thought I should go to college. Somebody suggested I get grant money, so I did. I went to Frostburg State, a small liberal arts college, but was already two years behind everybody. We all had to take speech class, no matter what our major was. The man who taught the speech also taught theater. I did a speech in his class, and he said I should audition for his play. I said, “I’ve never even seen a play.”

You were in your first play in college. How did that lead you to pursue a career in theater?
I was just enthralled with it. My family was all blue-collar, so the idea of working and having fun was something I never experienced as a child. You went to work because it paid the bills. My teacher told me to go to graduate school, so I went to Southern Methodist University, which is really where I got my training. Then I came to New York and for four years worked as a waitress and a secretary. While I was waitressing, I met up with a gal named Cass Morgan, and we started writing. I didn’t have an agent, and was paying off all of my student loans. I was very frustrated. We began writing this piece, which eventually became Pump Boys and Dinettes. We did it Off Broadway and then on Broadway. We are thrilled that Pump Boys is going to be revived on Broadway after 25 years. John Doyle is directing it; it opens April 10.

What is this new role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof like for you?
It’s one of the greatest roles and plays ever written, I think. I have the privilege to say Tennessee Williams’ words and listen to them every night. It’s something I will never forget. I’m thrilled, honored and thankful every single day.

How did you prepare for it?
I read the play over and over again. I can never read it too much, to hear things in the language. Then it’s really about getting together with the director and the company and seeing where we’re going as a collaborative group.

How is working with Scarlett?
The best. She is totally the best. She’s a great girl, and so talented. She’s a good person—generous and fun. We’re really, really lucky to be with her. And the whole company is like that. It’s a truly fabulous time—every minute of it.

What is your favorite Broadway song to sing onstage?
I have to say “Everybody’s Girl,” because it’s one of the greatest songs ever written. It’s an incredible number by John Kander and Fred Ebb. I still sing it a lot—at benefits and things. It’s a timeless, funny, great song. And I’m thrilled every time I get to sing it.

You won an unexpected Tony Award in 1993 for Redwood Curtain.
Our show closed early, and the papers were writing who they thought would win—and I wasn’t even listed as a possibility. It was a big surprise for me, and everybody, that I won that year.
You also won an Emmy for NYPD Blue. Where do you keep your awards?
They’re in my office.

You guest-starred on Glee. What was that like?
Yes, in the very first season, Victor Garber and I played the parents of Will. This was before it became a monster hit. It was really fun and fabulous to be there. Everyone was great on the set and worked really, really hard. I don’t know if they had even started airing it when we shot that.

You’ve been on television, Broadway and in film. Which do you like best?
I like them all. It’s all fun. My heart is in Broadway, and always has been, which is why I live here in New York. Sometimes television and film help pay the bills, which is great. I had a great time doing NYPD Blue and Grey’s Anatomy. I loved being on those shows with all those great people.

Any funny stories from you career?
I shot a movie called Milwaukee, Minnesota, which, believe me, you can’t even find. I think it showed for one night in New York. We were shooting an ice-fishing scene way up in Canada. I had to get back to L.A. to shoot NYPD Blue. It was a very low-budget movie, and in order to get me back, they sent a cargo plane. They dropped me off at this airport. I meet this pilot, and we get in this two-seater cargo plane. He said, “You have to help me fly it.” It was so scary, and yet so thrilling. He is an incredible pilot, and during 9/11, I got a call from him asking if I was okay.

For tickets, and to learn more about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, please visit www.catonahottinroofbroadway.com

Photo courtesy Ken Howard

There’s nothing definitive about the new Desire revival

It’s hard to breathe new life into a classic work. With performers ranging from the iconic Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh to Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Jessica Lange, Frances McDormand, and Treat Williams breathing life and resuscitating it into the immortal roles of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, is there any insight that hasn’t been gained when putting Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire under a microscope?

Emily Mann’s current version, adorning the Broadhurst Theatre, tries a new tact by adopting a cosmetic approach, featuring a non-white cast in the principal roles. This decision on its own doesn’t really dilute the work (aside from stripping away Stanley’s working-class Polish heritage), and yet the end result, despite a disciplined performance by Nicole Ari Parker as Blanche, remains a distinctly neutered affair.

One of the key elements to Streetcar is passion. It’s what drives Stella (Daphne Rubin-Vega) back to Stanley (Blair Underwood) every time his abusive temper causes her to run; it’s what has caused a great many of Blanche’s ruinous past indiscretions; and it’s what ignites what is at first an emotional and then eventually a physical battle royale between Stella’s older sister and her husband. The stakes should be huge in this battle of old school gentility and new school animal instinct; everybody, somehow, loses in the end. This Streetcar faithfully follows the battle but never engages us in the war.

I can’t fault the soldiers, at least not completely. Underwood’s good looks have always been this actor’s stock-in-trade, and his physicality makes him a magnetic Stanley (as evidenced by the distracting whooping going on in the audience), but not a brutish one. This cuts down on the contrast with Blanche. Stanley may be an animal, but you know what you’re going to get with him. On the other hand, Blanche, fading into a world of mental instability, is all images and mendacity. From the moment she steps off the titular trolley and crashes her sister and brother-in-law’s squalid apartment (realistically designed By Eugene Lee, although lit a bit too brightly by Edward Pierce), nothing she puts forward is steeped in truth or reliability. Her delicate act belies a selfish cruelty that should threaten to detonate everything in her path.

But Mann’s production hits the notes without sounding any tune. The scenes don’t escalate to the point where the audience must worry that this powder keg is going to explode. Parker, onstage throughout almost the entirety of this nearly three-hour show, plays Blanche as smart but a loose cannon, haunted by shame, wrecked by guilt and willing to use her wiles to get whatever. This works until the second act, starting with a climactic scene opposite Wood Harris’s Mitch. Suddenly, characters’ reactions in this heretofore naturalistic production seem inorganic. We’re improperly prepared for the unassertive Mitch to lambast Blanche, and Blanche’s ultimate submission to Stanley’s victimization is jarring but only in a sensational way. Furthermore, Rubin-Vega’s Stella lacks some of the carnal conviction required to ensure loyalty to her husband over her sister. (Amelia Campbell makes the most of a small role as upstairs neighbor Eunice).

Mann’s Streetcar isn’t ablaze, but it isn’t a total wash either. How could it be? Williams’ work is too potent to completely lack effect. Like a streetcar trip itself, sometimes a slow, rocky journey can still be justified by the destination.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St. www.Telecharge.com. Through July 22.