Background

Tennessee Williams' great play has been graced, deservedly, by some of the greatest actors ever to be remembered. Like some of the massive Shakespeare parts each time it's played one wonders how any actors could play it as well. What more could be said? Apparently a lot more.

This production has not only taken it to a wider audience -particularly in America where the show was a Broadway smash hit - but with amazing emotional sincerity. Each part is an icon of Humanity's great challenge - how families deal with the consequences of hiding the truth from each other. Tennessee, being a master of the 'inadmissible', carries us through the transition from the lies to the truth.

This play pulls no punches on issues of almost masochistic repression, sadistic suppression and loveless rejection. Although the play storms through the pain in each of the characters' lives, it has moved audiences for many decades with a certain easiness that carries dark drama to the lightness of truth.

The art of a fine playwright gives scope for artists to give their all. And they do. Again - how are they going to follow this one?

The Story
Big Daddy - the very rich man and his wife get together for his last birthday only he is sure he isn't going to die even though the doctors say he is to the family. They don't tell him. His beloved son is attempting to hide his secret from his fatehr and his wife Maggie ( the cat) who is very poor at covering up her secret of being rejected by her husband who blames it all on drink. Big Mama is a mother - too suppressed to express her heart - that seems to be her secret.

"Beauty is communication from the heart"- Phylicia Rashad

Big Daddy is in no mood for hiding anything though and Brick is mostly too wrapped up in his pain to be careful - in vino veritas. The story revolves around the stripping off the layers to get to the truth underneath their near storybook ideal lives.

The cast and the production have been given considerable acclaim. Any Tennessee Williams fan is going to love this performance and anyone else will get a new perspective on Tennessee's art.

Cast
• James Earl Jones – Big Daddy
• Phylicia Rashad – Big Mama
• Adrian Lester – Brick 
• Sanaa Lathan – Maggie
• Richard Blackwood – Brightie 
• Derek Griffiths – Reverend Tooker 
• Nina Sosanyar – Mae 
• Guy Burgess – Lacey 
• Claudia Cadette – Nanny
• Peter De Jersey – Gooper
• Susan Lawson-Reynolds – Sookey 
• Joseph Mydell – Doctor Baugh 
• Gemma O’Duffy – Swing 


• Producer - Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones  
• Sound - Richard Brooker    
• Director - Debbie Allen  
• Design - Morgan Large 
• Costume - Fay Fullerton 
• Lighting - David Holmes