Tennessee Williams found in his late age the highest creativity in playwriting, as well his vision of life gets more and
more marked by his pessimisn and his lack of faith towards the future. This work is one of the shining pearls of this artistic career, which had also a lucky cinematographic transposition, starring amazing Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the story of a family of the southern America in crisis, focusing on the turbulent relationship of a wife and husband, Maggie is "the Cat", and her husband is Brick Pollitt. The play is centred also on their interaction with Brick's family over the course of one evening gathering at the family estate in Mississippi, ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of patriarch and tycoon "Big Daddy" Pollitt.
Maggie, through wit and beauty, has escaped a childhood of desperate poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitt family, but finds herself suffering in an unfulfilling marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, has neglected his wife and further infuriates her by ignoring his brother's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference and his near-continuous drinking dates back to the recent suicide of his friend Skipper. Big Daddy is unaware that he has cancer and will not live to see another birthday; his doctors and his family have conspired to keep this information from him and his wife. His relatives are in attendance and attempt to present themselves in the best possible light, hoping to receive the definitive share of Big Daddy's enormous wealth.
We find out the typical ingredients of Williams's theatre and american hot representations. There are no heroes, all the human qualities and positive attitudes must remain in the deeper and not expressed feelings of the heart: they cannot occupy any relevant space in human affairs, because we live in a world ruled by necessities, and these are more influent than any other thought and value.