Top Grossing Broadway Shows - Week Ending March 2

1. Wicked
2. Jersey Boys
3. The Lion King
4. The Little Mermaid
5. Mary Poppins
6. Mamma Mia
7. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
8. Monty Python’s Spamalot
9. The Phantom of the Opera
10. August: Osage County
11. Young Frankenstein (Not reporting)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I checked out ‘Cat On a Hot Tin Roof‘ last night at the Broadhurst Theatre.

As for the play, I pretty much agree with Hilton Als’ upcoming review in The New Yorker. Als sums it up when he writes ‘When they’re together, (Terrance) Howard and (James Earl) Jones manage to transcend the play’s weak direction…’. Unfortunately, it is a three-act, 2:45 play, and we only see these two acting together in the second act, but it’s a fine act.

Which, in the end, is the least one can usually say about a star-studded Broadway play - that one enjoyed the opportunity to see a couple of great actors perform live, but that the play itself was flat.

Hustle & Flow (Widescreen Edition) - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Deluxe Edition)

Being no study of Tennesee Williams’ work, after seeing this play, I don’t feel I am that much more learned as to the reason for his acclaim. I left indifferent. I can only assume that the blame for this be placed on director Debbie Allen, lacking other suspects.

Meanwhile, I have nothing good to say about the Broadhurst theatre. The prices were high, the seats were the most cramped and uncomfortable of any I’ve been in, and the relative lack of facilities left a lot of people still in long lines for the rest rooms at the end of both intermissions. As a result, the beginning of the third act was spent by audience and actors alike trying to ignore all the people embarrassingly still trying to be seated through no fault of their own. Common, maybe, but there is no excuse for a theatre not being able to accommodate the house at intermission.

Actually, I do have one good thing to say about the Broadhurst - the bartender pours a perfect drink - but he’s not doing us any favors working at a venue which only serves sporadically during the evening.

In the play, the character Maggie complains that perpetuating her troubled marriage is like being ‘…a cat on a hot tin roof - seeing how long she can stand it before she has to jump off…’. Thats kind of how I felt during most of this show.