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Theatre by Lori Montgomery There is a certain image of Elizabeth Taylor that North Americans harbour deep in their collective unconscious. Whether or not you’ve seen the 1958 film version of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, you’ve likely seen Taylor as Maggie the Cat in the seductive pose featured on the movie poster. It’s that film version – one that Williams himself wasn’t too fond of, by the way – that many people will have in mind when they sit down to watch Theatre Calgary’s version of the play. "That’s the problem of movies," says Les Carlson, who plays Big Daddy (a role Burl Ives played in film and on Broadway). "I mean, I love the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but I really don’t like the movie. Because (in the movie) the whole first scene was played so seriously, and the whole first scene of the play, when you do it right, is a laugh a minute." Carlson, a familiar face despite making his home in Toronto, isn’t afraid to bring up another example from his CV, the ill-fated Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A Love Story. The production – blamed for Theatre Calgary’s brush with death a few seasons ago – had more than a few things working against it. Carlson maintains the biggest problem many audience members had with the play was the concept of two actors playing the scientist and his evil alter ego – a concept that didn’t jive with the repeated film versions of the story. "It’s because of this concept from the movie that the guy turns into an ape," he sighs. But in the end, he says, an actor can’t let an audience’s preconceived notions affect his performance. "You can’t try to outguess people’s expectations – or to give them what they expect, for that matter," he says. "You’ve just got to go with what you think is the guts of the play." The iconic character of Maggie is a frustrated woman, trying to understand why her husband Brick won’t touch her. They visit Brick’s family home, where Big Daddy is dying of cancer, and the family is conspiring to keep that information from him. Repeated confrontations with Maggie and Big Daddy force Brick to deal with his unresolved feelings about a friend’s suicide. "There’s a whole homosexual thing in this, which at the time it was written, I’m sure it was a bit of a shock, but I don’t think that’s what this play is about," Carlson says. "The play is about lying. It’s about lying and life and death. It’s about how we lie to ourselves and to each other, and about people like Maggie and Big Daddy, who cling to life by their fingernails and fight to hold on to life."

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