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The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Vol. 3: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof / Orpheus Descending / Suddenly Last Summer
Volume III of the series includes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), and Suddenly Last Summer (1958). The first, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Award, has proved every bit as successful as William’s earlier A Streetcar Named Desire. The other two plays, though different in kind, both have something of the quality of Greek tragedy in 20th-century settings, bringing about catharsis through ritual death. The Theatre of Tennessee Williams brings together in a matching format the plays of one of the America’s most influential and innovative dramatists. Arranged in chronological order, this ongoing series includes the original cast listings and production notes.
423 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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About the author
Tennessee Williams
755 books3,722 followersThomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. This play closely reflected his own unhappy family background. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, he attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century, alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
From Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 28, 2025
Cat on A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/05/c... winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955 and the author’s personal favorite
10 out of 10
Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest writers http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/04/a... but I cannot help but say that Thomas Lanier Williams III could have chosen a better name than Tennessee – this is to show how silly or stupid I am, rejecting the name of a whole state, just because they embrace Trump and other such follies over there, and it is the place where my sister and brother-in-law have had some unpleasant and even outright miserable experiences…
Cat on A Hot Tin roof could be best seen with Paul Newman – the lead actor in another stupendous film http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/05/s... based on a play by the same Tennessee Williams and an artist that was not just a phenomenal presence on stage or screen, but also a wonderful human being…William Goldman named only Newman and Clint Eastwood when asked about actors that are not self-obsessed and in search of acclaim – and Elizabeth Taylor in the principal roles
The fact that the play is set in the Mississippi delta would work against it in my case, as stated above, I am prejudiced against red states, I see the embrace of the cult leader Trump as not just objectionable, we reject murder and people like Stalin because ‘it is required by sanity as well as decency’ to quote one of the best minds that I know of, Magician Kingsley Amis http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/m... in his The King’s English
Looking on the internet I see that there is a version available there, with Natalie Wood in the main role of Maggie The Cat, the strong, determined, brave, clever, resilient, loving, perseverant, creative, outstanding woman that tries to persuade her husband, Brick, to stop drinking, or at least prevent him from becoming an irredeemable alcoholic, maybe somehow make him have sex with her, so that they have a child or maybe a few children, just as his brother, Gooper, and his souse, Mae, have – they have a sixth on the way.
In the retrograde view of that South (in particular, but seeing the changes they bring to various laws, from abortion to ‘anti- Woke’, we could argue that they live in the past even today) a wife that does not have progenitors is pretty much useless – Big Daddy, the patriarch of the family, who is more or less a benign figure, but with very dark sides, asks his son, Brick, why doesn’t he get rid of Maggie, if they do not get along, as if a woman can be dispend of, if there are no children, and the man is ‘superior’ somehow…
The situation is much more complicated, for Brick seems to be gay –Tennessee Williams was homosexual and "Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life’ was said of him – and thus, all the efforts on display would not make Maggie succeed, unless of course, we would conclude that the man is actually bisexual – which he could be, seeing as he married the woman – or remind ourselves that ‘gender is the biggest lie of civilization’ and use a different perspective…
In the Co-Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize Girl, Woman, Other http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/g... the author, Bernardine Evaristo explains that gender fluidity is a more accurate view of sexuality, we have Two Spirits, non-gender and this is changing from one minute to the next, and therefore, Brick could have been infatuated with Skipper – or vice versa – but that was a changing landscape, and then there is a chance or more for The Cat.
She is On a Hot Tin Roof and needs to jump, because she is infuriated with the continuous push from Mae and Gooper, who want to inherit the huge property, once Big Daddy is dead, and alas, the old man has cancer, something he does not know, at least for a long time, and seeing as Brick is depressed, addicted to alcohol, the chances seem to be on the side of the family with five, soon to be six children
There are many lies, and a paternal, patriarchal society, Big Daddy has a fit of fury and comes down on his wife and others, saying he is fine and will take over again, they have been leading the show for too long, thinking he is very ill (which he is), but now that the doctor says he just has irritable intestine or something similar, he is back at his place, and wants to push Brick to tell what is wrong, stop drinking and for that he kicks his son around, to have an honest conversation about him and Maggie…
Gooper and Mae have the room next door and they keep spying, telling Big Mama (and then she informs her husband) that she sleeps on the bed and he on the couch and hence, there will be no heirs there, and that is a situation that old fashioned, retrograde Big Daddy cannot tolerate, if Maggie is the cause, why is his son still with her, what is this click he needs to hear in his head, the alcohol has tormented his mind…
Traditions, exaggerations, big fortunes and the greed that is associated with it, addiction, lust, lies, homosexuality, and much more are here in the play, or just hinted at – sexuality was not to be taken head on at that time, when I think gay people, LGBTQ plus and I think these days something else has been added to these acronyms, but I am not sure what and I am too lazy to look it up, for who is taking the effort to read this far has the vitality to find it on the net, if curious – Tennessee Williams was really one of the best http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/01/t...
Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
10 out of 10
Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest writers http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/04/a... but I cannot help but say that Thomas Lanier Williams III could have chosen a better name than Tennessee – this is to show how silly or stupid I am, rejecting the name of a whole state, just because they embrace Trump and other such follies over there, and it is the place where my sister and brother-in-law have had some unpleasant and even outright miserable experiences…
Cat on A Hot Tin roof could be best seen with Paul Newman – the lead actor in another stupendous film http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/05/s... based on a play by the same Tennessee Williams and an artist that was not just a phenomenal presence on stage or screen, but also a wonderful human being…William Goldman named only Newman and Clint Eastwood when asked about actors that are not self-obsessed and in search of acclaim – and Elizabeth Taylor in the principal roles
The fact that the play is set in the Mississippi delta would work against it in my case, as stated above, I am prejudiced against red states, I see the embrace of the cult leader Trump as not just objectionable, we reject murder and people like Stalin because ‘it is required by sanity as well as decency’ to quote one of the best minds that I know of, Magician Kingsley Amis http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/m... in his The King’s English
Looking on the internet I see that there is a version available there, with Natalie Wood in the main role of Maggie The Cat, the strong, determined, brave, clever, resilient, loving, perseverant, creative, outstanding woman that tries to persuade her husband, Brick, to stop drinking, or at least prevent him from becoming an irredeemable alcoholic, maybe somehow make him have sex with her, so that they have a child or maybe a few children, just as his brother, Gooper, and his souse, Mae, have – they have a sixth on the way.
In the retrograde view of that South (in particular, but seeing the changes they bring to various laws, from abortion to ‘anti- Woke’, we could argue that they live in the past even today) a wife that does not have progenitors is pretty much useless – Big Daddy, the patriarch of the family, who is more or less a benign figure, but with very dark sides, asks his son, Brick, why doesn’t he get rid of Maggie, if they do not get along, as if a woman can be dispend of, if there are no children, and the man is ‘superior’ somehow…
The situation is much more complicated, for Brick seems to be gay –Tennessee Williams was homosexual and "Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life’ was said of him – and thus, all the efforts on display would not make Maggie succeed, unless of course, we would conclude that the man is actually bisexual – which he could be, seeing as he married the woman – or remind ourselves that ‘gender is the biggest lie of civilization’ and use a different perspective…
In the Co-Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize Girl, Woman, Other http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/g... the author, Bernardine Evaristo explains that gender fluidity is a more accurate view of sexuality, we have Two Spirits, non-gender and this is changing from one minute to the next, and therefore, Brick could have been infatuated with Skipper – or vice versa – but that was a changing landscape, and then there is a chance or more for The Cat.
She is On a Hot Tin Roof and needs to jump, because she is infuriated with the continuous push from Mae and Gooper, who want to inherit the huge property, once Big Daddy is dead, and alas, the old man has cancer, something he does not know, at least for a long time, and seeing as Brick is depressed, addicted to alcohol, the chances seem to be on the side of the family with five, soon to be six children
There are many lies, and a paternal, patriarchal society, Big Daddy has a fit of fury and comes down on his wife and others, saying he is fine and will take over again, they have been leading the show for too long, thinking he is very ill (which he is), but now that the doctor says he just has irritable intestine or something similar, he is back at his place, and wants to push Brick to tell what is wrong, stop drinking and for that he kicks his son around, to have an honest conversation about him and Maggie…
Gooper and Mae have the room next door and they keep spying, telling Big Mama (and then she informs her husband) that she sleeps on the bed and he on the couch and hence, there will be no heirs there, and that is a situation that old fashioned, retrograde Big Daddy cannot tolerate, if Maggie is the cause, why is his son still with her, what is this click he needs to hear in his head, the alcohol has tormented his mind…
Traditions, exaggerations, big fortunes and the greed that is associated with it, addiction, lust, lies, homosexuality, and much more are here in the play, or just hinted at – sexuality was not to be taken head on at that time, when I think gay people, LGBTQ plus and I think these days something else has been added to these acronyms, but I am not sure what and I am too lazy to look it up, for who is taking the effort to read this far has the vitality to find it on the net, if curious – Tennessee Williams was really one of the best http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/01/t...
Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
April 28, 2025
One great play (Orpheus Descending) and two very good ones (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the insane one-act Suddenly Last Summer), which by my count averages out to a 4 for the collection. SLS would be nearer to perfect if it didn't end so abruptly, and I think Williams' more concise original vision for Cat... is superior to the more overtly dramatic play it became after Elia Kazan's suggestions to bring Big Daddy back for the third act. Nonetheless, one of the best playwrights of the 20th century is back in fine form after the relative misfires of Vol. 2. Particularly interesting is the way he melds his Southern Gothic sensibility with elements of Greek/Classical Tragedy in the latter two plays of the collection, and the more experimental staging elements of SLS.
August 29, 2024
I'd somehow never read Cat before and it's perfect. Orpheus is a sentimental favourite. Suddenly Last Summer is ridiculous but so compelling.
September 22, 2022
I read this book for a literature class, but found myself enjoying his work very much. Tennessee Williams is a master of capturing mental illness and social disparities in a strikingly tender and humanistic way. Even the villains deserve some compassion, as their place is typically backed into a corner or run off the path. No matter which story of his you read, be sure to enjoy the metaphors and imagery. It runs deep!!
July 29, 2023
Wow! I thought Sam Shepard wrote some dark plays, but these plays reveal the darkest of the dark within our decadent nation. This is the true soul of America. This is who we are. This is why people support Trump and why the cowardly Democrats do nothing about it. Democrats are just trumpsters of a different shade.
March 2, 2023
it was for english lit… wasn’t bad i just would never read it again or recommend it lol
September 30, 2025
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: 2.75/5
Orpheus Descending: 4.25/5
Suddenly Last Summer: 3/5
Orpheus Descending: 4.25/5
Suddenly Last Summer: 3/5
January 10, 2013
T. Williams became my addiction many years ago. He is a surgeon,called to perform the autopsy of social pathologies, skillfully cutting them by crisp, harsh words and disclosures of the maliciousness of human nature.
Definitely must-know Chefs d'oeuvres of the American classic drama!
Also,if you have a chance, go to see the "Cat…," playing on Broadway this season. With Scarlett Johansson as Margaret and Ciarán Hinds as Big Daddy the play will excel your expectations.
Definitely must-know Chefs d'oeuvres of the American classic drama!
Also,if you have a chance, go to see the "Cat…," playing on Broadway this season. With Scarlett Johansson as Margaret and Ciarán Hinds as Big Daddy the play will excel your expectations.
December 29, 2014
Pretty disappointed as all of Tennessee Williams's theatre has affected me in a subtle profound manner. I could not identify with any of the characters, and not just because the main character is struggling with (plot spoiler!!) homosexuality. I don't really feel bad for any of them; frankly, they all come across a bunch of superficial, whining brats.
After reading the analysis of the play online, I understood Williams's intent, and therefore, I gave it three stars.
After reading the analysis of the play online, I understood Williams's intent, and therefore, I gave it three stars.
January 10, 2011
Really enjoyed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof....eager to read more from Williams! This version was not overly stage directed making it a bit easier to read and include the alternate "Broadway" version of Act III.
August 10, 2009
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ***** (5 stars)
Orpheus Descending ((unnecessary?) re-do on 'Battle of Angels') ****0
Suddenly Last Summer ****o
Orpheus Descending ((unnecessary?) re-do on 'Battle of Angels') ****0
Suddenly Last Summer ****o
December 26, 2012
Suddenly last summer is a great play,where you fell Katherine's desperation and the social strains which captive people's openmindness.
November 27, 2017
Tennessee is the master of the macabre and tragic. In the universe he creates, the fragile are always in peril, and nothing beautiful ever ends well. He's a cynic, but a seductive one.
December 28, 2007
Oh, Ten. You crazy gay drunk silly nut. I love you.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews