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Rent Adventure Story

Possibly unecessary disclaimer: This article is, in the spirit of Saturday Night Live, a gentle parody of the SNL Adventures, a semi-regular series written about the fun and excitement involved in going to see a taping of the popular television show, from waiting in the standby line to the show itself. I had the idea for this while we were standing in line waiting to get in to see the Broadway musiclal, Rent. I mean this article to be good clean fun, as it were. With that being said, here is the Rent Adventure Story.

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An Analysis of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

by Lydia Jones Kerkhoffs

“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” written by Tennessee Williams is a brilliant play about a dysfunctional family that is forces to deal with hidden deceptions and hypocrisy. It has won a Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critic Award. This powerful play was first produced in 1955 at the Morosco Theatre, and it was directed by the great director Elia Kazan. The issues that this play revolves around transcend time and region; Williams uses his craft to entertain, enlighten and bares men’s soul.

There was some contention between Williams and Kazan over the first written version of the play. Kazan praised work but he wanted him to revise the third act. Williams wished to appease the director but he did not want to compromise his art. (Williams, 124) He states,

The gist of Kazan’s reservations can be listed as three points. 1) He felt that Big Daddy was too important to disappear from the play. 2) He felt that the character of Brick should undergo some apparent mutation as a result of the virtual vivisection that he undergoes in his interview with his father in Act Two. 3) He felt that the character of Maggie, should be, if possible, more clearly sympathetic to an audience. (Williams, 124)

Furthermore, Williams and director Elia Kazan debated over some of the cast members in the first 1955 production of “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”

Kazan saw the young Barbara Bel Geddes as a perfect Maggie The Cat, but Tennessee did not concur. As for the director’s choice for Big Daddy, Burl Ives, Tennessee could only observe, “He’s a singer, isn’t he?” (Smith, 17)

Set Apart Also, what sets the first production of Williams’s play apart from his earlier works is the fact that the play’s foundation is based on conversations the characters have that appear to be “real”, vital as well as entertaining. They do not preach and condescend. An audience can recognize elements of the characters in friends, family and in themselves. Williams appears to have creatively evolved as a playwright in his quest to unmask man’s illusions. He and Kazan have created a compelling drama with an uncomplicated set and a talented cast of performers. (Akinson)

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Mostly White Meat

[Author’s Note: This poem also appears in my play, The Weeping Water Cafe.]

A face, tender as a porcelain doll,
cracks under the white hot mirror of
quartz lights.
A voice,
feeble at first,
then shouts into my living room.

I stop,
listen,
and a wrinkled pea rolls off my fork.

Something about exploding fuel like erasers
and a lost cause
and bruised bodies
and They’re All Dead.
I can’t swallow my mashed potatoes.

A commercial.

They are called heroes.
Invisible chests are adorned
with the metals from exploded tanks
and their memories are bathed in the
salty tear from a child’s eye.

The apple cobbler doesn’t look so good any more.

The news comes in fast…
A blue sock hiding a charred bone washes ashore —
a bottle holding a plea for help
from another unknown brother in horror.
They didn’t know what hit ’em.

The paste, called gravy, hardens over my
television dinner,
mostly white meat.

Replayed before the bloodshot eye of ground pirates,
the white pencils explode carefully planned
speeches again
and then some more.

And so the heroes are back in the clouds
where they belong.

And the potatoes,
quiet,
and still unswallowed,
harden
into seven chalky headstones.

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Unnatural Selection

[Author’s Note: This poem appears in my play, The Weeping Water Cafe.]

I was kneeling, pulling dandelions
when I heard it.
There, under the mock black cherry tree
a young rabbit flat on its back
limp,
a broken toothpick spine.
The wail
describes an
underside ripped clean of fur
oozing red
exposing a pink
diaphragm.

Across the lawn
calm,
nodding,
the cat.

My hands
are city clean.
I consider nursing
or twisting the head.

Quieter now.
I name it Gregory.
His life stains my palms.
The eye closes.
An ear droops.
Last gasps
dribble
from my bleeding fists
and seep into patio cracks.

I open the garbage can,
place Gregory inside the
Gillette Dairy Ice Milk carton
and replace the aluminum lid
that doesn’t begin to muffle
the heartbeat in my fingertips.