In the 2013 Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Rob Ashford, Scarlett Johansson’s performance as the frustrated, cat-like Maggie lent a bold, confident new dimension to the role. While Johansson’s deliberate and neatly tailored performance effectively delivered the vivid, restless life force of the complex female character, the more flighty, whimsical, feminine side of Margaret was lost in translation.
Maggie’s “musical” voice, mentioned several times by Williams in his stage directions, is an essential part of her inexplicable charm. Dominating the dialogue in the play’s first scene, the rich, husky tone of Johansson’s voice was immediately distinguishable, and deeply affected her rendition of the character. While her delivery of Maggie’s rambling monologues was smooth and easy on the ears, her rich tone lent a dominating air to the character. Maggie’s vulnerability, so central to her role and ethos, was decipherable only through the telling dialogue, rather than the delivery itself.
Johansson’s powerful body language, however, aptly captured the vulnerability and nervous energy her verbal delivery lacked. A particularly compelling moment was after Big Mama accused her of not doing her part to capture Brick’s interest in bed. After Big Mama dramatically exited through the glass doors, which were swinging open and slamming shut throughout the production, Johansson fell to her knees on the floor, crying in faltering tones, “That’s not fair! That’s not fair!” In that moment—shoulders heaving silently, head bowed—the fragile, broken nature of Maggie’s character was more directly communicated to the audience than through any of the preceding dialogue.
Additionally, Johansson’s confident and masterful usage of the large white bed, standing as the centerpiece of an otherwise relatively minimalist set, added a deeper hue of frustration to her Maggie. Attempting to provoke a reaction from the otherwise painfully apathetic Brick (Benjamin Walker), Maggie mentions Skipper, Brick’s homosexual best friend who, after confessing his secret to Brick, was driven to suicide by Brick’s cold and seemingly unsupportive response. Brick, who drinks to avoid the poignant guilt he feels for the death of his friend, is roused to anger only upon Maggie’s mention of Skipper. He jumps onto the bed after Maggie, and holds his crutch to her neck. “I could kill you, kill you with this crutch,” says Brick. For the first time, his physical power, previously slackened in his drunken, apathetic state, becomes sharply evident. Maggie, back arched, arms spread, seems to revel in the moment of danger and climactic emotion. “I’m alive, alive, alive…” says Maggie, and Johansson’s defined, graceful body movements, full of aggravated tension, longing and vivacity, could not communicate the words more vividly.
Maggie’s role was to transform, before her audience, into a cat on a hot tin roof: a trapped and yet determined, irrationally hopeful creature. Though Johansson’s overwhelming confidence and almost too-polished articulation in the first act left what to be desired, Johansson, in the play’s third and final act, was at last able to strike the full, ironic multidimensionality of the role. “I lied to Big Daddy, but tonight we’re going to make the lie true, and when that’s done, I’ll bring the liquor back here and we’ll get drunk together, here, in this place that death has come…” says Maggie near the play’s close, left once again alone with Brick and the large, conspicuous, pleading white bed. With this final delivery, the tender desperation of Johansson’s Maggie is fully exposed. “Nothing’s more determined than a cat on a hot tin roof—is there? Is there Baby?” and with the concluding, teetering question, the audience is left with the image of a delicate but unyielding cat, refusing to jump, even though she has the ability, within her agile, dexterous form, to make one clean leap, and be gone.