Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

About

Tennessee Williams's groundbreaking 1955 play centers around Maggie, "the cat," and her life married to devastatingly handsome Brick, an alcoholic. The play takes place over one day during a birthday celebration for Brick's father, who is unknowingly ailing from cancer. The play circles around themes of Maggie's suffocating discontent in her marriage, as the secrets of Brick, the family and herself loom overhead. This deftly written work is often considered a classic, and one of Williams' best works, garnering him a Pulitzer Prize the year of its publication. In 1958 it was made into a film staring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.