Phylicia Rashad was amazing in this production! Not to recognize her is a slap in the face.

this production was very high school. the only two actors who acquitted themselves well were anika noni rose and lisa arrindell anderson, who played mae. james and phylicia were WAY too over the top, and phylicia tried to make her character something the role was never intended to be. and debbie allen played the ending for hope. tennessee williams NEVER had hope. ever. and terrance howard was horrible, just no depth to his role. the whole point of brick is to say one thing and mean another - and terrance’s performance never had that. just a shame really, given the potential and talent, but i lay all of the blame on debbie allen’s poor direction.

that being said, anika deserves a nod, but its a tough year for acting nods in plays.

Unfortunately, I’m not surprised at this.

The production was definitely entertaining and had it’s good parts, but Stephen Byrd(producer) and Debbie Allen turned this brilliant drama into a comedy.

I blame Mr. Byrd for wanting to “Tyler Perryize” the play to draw the black audience. Neither he nor Mrs. Allen trusted the play to stand as is.

It’s a shame when you think about it.

meh. I read a few reviews and they all said this was a let down, so the lack of a nom doesn’t surprise me.

Tennessee Williams is rolling over in his grave.

however, I have heard praises about Annika Noni Rose’s performance. Not so much about the direction.

Slick back looking real good in that photo.

I disagree.. I thought Anika played Maggie brilliantly and absolutely deserved a nod. I didn’t think the play as been Tyler Perry-ized at all. I thought Terrance’s performance was choppy, but its a hard role, to play someone getting progressively more intoxicated without sliding into stereotype….

Phyicia was very good too, but she has been getting props and I figured she’d end up having to sit out this round…..

JEJ’s performance was good as well……

There certainly were production and staging issues but it really was a good show… My thinking maybe that some people had a problem with seeing the characters from an ethnic perspective, not so much that the cast was Black but the different perspective that comes from having a black director etc….

I thought Terrance’s performance was choppy, but its a hard role, to play someone getting progressively more intoxicated without sliding into stereotype….
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Terrence is an Academy Award nominated actor. His reputation is built on that and he is touted as an actor who can always deliver the goods. I know any actor can have an off day, but I expected much more from Mr. Howard.

Terrence and Annika were amazing in this play… amazing… definitely Terrence’s best work

I saw this play opening night, and I wasn’t exactly impressed by anyone other than Anika Noni Rose, who was brilliant. The work is greatly “Tyler-Perry-ized” (thanks for that term ChynaDoll) and played for laughs when, I think, no laughs were intended. To me, it was embarrassing that the work was reduced to slapstick comedy at a few points, but the (mostly black) audience seemed to be eating it up. I think maybe Debbie Allen thought Blacks wouldn’t respond to this work unless the humor was played as broadly as possible. Either way, I felt a little condescended to. Phylicia Rashad, as great an actress as she is, is TOTALLY wrong for Big Mama. Her natural regal presence belied everything the character was about, and I think she was completely miscast. I expected more from James Earl Jones. He seemed to be working so hard just to shout his lines out on stage that I feared he would collapse at any point. I wish I could say it was some great, fearsome, brilliant performance, but it just wasn’t. Terrence Howard is a great film actor, but mediocre on stage. His voice barely registered above a whisper, and he didn’t seem to get the physicality of the role (the fact that he shares scenes with ANR underlines this contrast even more, as she is totally physical and owns every inch of the stage when she’s on). I do hope that Anika gets her due, though. I wasn’t even checking for her in this play, but it really showed me just how talented she is. Overall, this was a mediocre production. I’m not surprised that it was passed up for nominations and I won’t be surprised when it is passed up for Tonys, and I don’t think that race has much to do with it.

“I think maybe Debbie Allen thought Blacks wouldn’t respond to this work unless the humor was played as broadly as possible. Either way, I felt a little condescended to.”

@RLS: I had the same thoughts.

I saw this play with Boris Kodjoe playing the role of brick. Just looking at him alone was worth the price of admission…but I digress.
In my opinion, the play was not so great. I think Anika Noni Rose’s(Maggie) performance was commanding though I have to admit that I struggled to understand a majority of what she was saying in the first act no matter how much I strained.
Phylicia Rashad and James Earl Jone’s performances were mediocre at best for most of the play, and good at times for some of the play. My greatest scorn is reserved for Lisa Arrindell Andersdon (Mae) who I thought overacted and I found her delivery highly irritating. She must have thought she was enacting an overly emotional scene in a Tyler Perry movie…..for the entire play. At the end of the day, I think Boris Kodjoe did the best job of it…and that’s because he didn’t say much at all.

I have not had the opportunity to see this production, however I’d like to add to the comments that Cat is (or rather can and should be) a humorous play. Williams (like these [mostly black] audiences?) understood that dramas without humor are one dimensional.

I had high expectations for this production; from its conception, right up to the time that I arrived at the theater one Friday night a few weeks back. I’ve been a fan of Williams’ and particularly this piece for nearly 30 years. So, I was stoke’d to see how this production might be staged, invisioned and tweaked to make the proper impact and to most importantly tell this story a ‘different’ way. Jones had actually done the show before with an all white cast about 10-15 years ago, and I heard that he was Brilliant! But to say that I was disappointed would be a gross exaggeration. I was truly shocked at the lack of focus on the mood of the piece, the desperation of Gooper and Mae and the sadness of Big Mama. I thought that it was poorly staged, WAY WAY WAY WAY too fast, loose to the point that it came of ‘Goofy’, it had far too many laughs.. and was riddled with miscasts from top to bottom; in particularly Giancarlo Espisito who stood out like a sore thumb amidst this cast. He almost single handedly transformed this Pulitzer Prize Winner piece into a 3-hour episode of “Martin”. On the upside, Lisa Anderson (Sister Woman/Mae) was SO good and so on the mark that she only served to polarize all the shortcomings of this re-mount. Anika Noni Rose wasn’t bad at all. She just sort of got lost in a sea of unfocused non-sense. I don’t think for a second that the cast wasn’t talented; on the contrary.. they were clearly just not allowed to think beyond the titanium wall that was clearly the very mis-guided vision of Miss Allen. Direction, or lack there of, in my opinion is what sunk this ship at the dock.

TEST

I just attended the June 6th production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Two days before I flew to NYC, I got an email stating that Terrence Howard would not be performing form June 5- June 10th. Had I known that in advance, I would not have purchased airline tickets, hotel, and show tickets. True I wanted to see the show, but Terrence Howard was “the box office draw!” not only for myself but many others. The general consensus of the people in line was one of disappointment at his absence. The understudy for Terrence actually did an excellent job, but all I could think of was the fact that I was four rows away from what was supposed to be Terrence Howard. It is my belief that if you’re going to star on Broadway, you need to be there FOR YOUR WHOLE CONTRACT. The audience and the fans should be able to rely on you being there for your stated dates when they purchase tickets. So that was the first disappointment.

Disappointment #2 was terrible and made me loose all respect for Anika Noni Rose!!! During the first act, a woman in the audience took ill and collapsed. Several people in the audience stood up and said, “She’s not breathing!” People were calling 911 on their cell phones, and people were shouting, “is there a doctor in the house”. The lady was dragged to the aisle where it seemed she may have had a seizure of some sort. All of a sudden in the angriest voice imaginable and with the matching facial expression, Anika Noni Rose angrily glares into the area of the comotion and actually stops the show and says, “Would y’all please be quiet and take your seats! We are in the middle of a show here! If you’re not satisfied with the show, please go to the desk and request a refund, if not please be quiet. I’m trying to do my job!”

The audience shouted out “there is a medical emergency”, and her snappy reply was, “then why aren’t the house lights on. I’m trying to perform here!” The audience began to boo her extremely loudly. Then she actually stomped off the stage into the audience in the direction of the comotion. When she saw the collapsed lady in the aisle being tended to, she angrily spun on her heels and marched back on the stage and then off the stage. She never once said, I’m sorry we can’t hear up here and we didn’t know it was a medical emergency” She just seemed totally annoyed and turned off that her performance had dared to be interrupted by a medical emergency! The nerve!

It was so ugly the way she acted, and as I said, the audience boo-ed her loudly. When she stormed off the stage, all you could hear were people saying, “Oh my God!” and “Who does she think she is?” and “What an awful attitude!” Everyone seemed to have a problem with the scene they had just witnessed.

The sad part was that she was in the midst of an absolutely superb performance. I didn’t really know much about her except that she was in Dream Girls, and I was beginning to really respect her acting skills at the very moment when the comotion interrupted it. Sadly enough, I lost all respect for her after that. When the paramedics had taken the lady away and the show resumed, when she came back out…you could just feel it in the air that the audience was no longer enamoured with her.

I heard Elizabeth Taylor played her part in the past. Could you imaging Liz Taylor stopping a Broadway show to admonish a segment of the audience, and then jumping up running off the stage to see for herself that there was a valid reason for her performance to be interrupted? Of course not!

To add insult to injury, when the show ended…when everyone was giving standing ovations, she holds her hands up to stop the audience from cheering. She says, “just so everyone knows, the lady who had the emergency is being tended to at the hospital and is expected to recover. Oh, and to answer the question who do I think i am…I’m an actor trying to make sure you get the best performance ever!” You should have seen the look on Phylicia Rashad and James Earl Jones faces as she did that, they were smiling, but their eyes were like “WTF?”.

So in conclusion, the show was awesome! It would have been better if Terrence had bothered to show up, and even better if Anika Noni Rose knew how to conduct herself on a Broadway stage. The audience was about 20% white and 80% people of color. What a terrible representation and attitude Anika Noni Rose showed!

Disappointed!