Williams play still has power> ‘Cat’ playing in Bangor

When asked if he had a favorite among his many works, Tennessee Williams would answer with a response used by many artists: “Always the latest.” In his memoirs, however, he wrote that, when pressed, he would “succumb” to the truth and admit that the published version of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” was indeed his favorite. And many agreed because the play went on to become his biggest and longest running work, and winner of both the Critics Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

It’s a testimony to its artistry and craft that “Cat” is still a crowd-drawing work, an American stage classic which has been revived several times with major stars such as Kathleen Turner, Charles Durning, Liz Taylor, Paul Newman and Fred Gwynne. One of its first stars, Barbara Bel Geddes, who played Maggie the Cat in the original 1955 production (but is probably best known these days for her role as Miss Ellie in the TV show “Dallas”), is a Maine summer resident.

The most recent local offering of “Cat” comes from Lisa A. Tromovitch, associate director at Penobscot Theatre, where the show will play through Feb. 18. Tromovitch envisions a somewhat less complex and symbolic world than Williams’ rich language suggests. This is, after all, a play about truth — or, more accurately, about mendacity and how it cripples a person, drives him to drink and forces him to cut life back to the limitations of personal stasis.

Set in the bedroom of a plantation home in the Mississippi Delta during the 1950s, “Cat” is about a Southern family. It reveals the failing marriage of Maggie and Brick, who are childless and have been estranged because of the influence of Brick’s college mate, Skipper. Skipper has died when the action begins, but his life continues to exert a pressure on the family. For Brick, in particular, the loss is intolerable. He feels responsible for the death because he rejected Skipper who, it is suggested, had made a profession of homosexual love. And so Brick drinks, and sexually rejects Maggie, who feels like a cat on a hot tin roof, burning and restless.

Other family dramas are taking place, too. Big Mamma and Big Daddy must face that Big Daddy, the grand patriarch of the family, is about to die with cancer. They plead with Brick, their favored son, to stop drinking so he can take over the family fortune lest it fall into the hands of their greed-driven son, Gooper, and his wife, Mae.

This is a show that requires top-notch professional actors, ones who can draw meaningfully from Williams’ words and who can believably recreate Southern living and adult circumstances. Several of Tromovitch’s actors fall short of that high-powered mark. It’s not just a matter of accurately presenting accents and a Southern milieu, but of creating an intensity based on deep psychological themes, and this production doesn’t thoroughly and evenly make the leap into that incisive and fascinating world of drama.

Yet there are moments in Tromovitch’s production that are genuinely well-done. Angela Roberts, a guest performer from New York, emphasizes the kindly and heartfelt qualities of Maggie, and her acting is alluringly multifaceted. What emerges is a totally sympathetic character, who is loving but also driven to have a life marked by dignity and honesty.

James Quinn’s Brick is not as captivating or as sympathetic, partially because Quinn has a baby-face youthfulness that undermines Brick’s inner torment, and partially because he is sometimes clunky as an actor. He’s at his best in scenes with Roberts, and the two of them create some of the show’s most interesting moments. Quinn would, incidentally, benefit from a haircut, which would grant him a look much more befitting an ex-football star of that time.

Betty Morse is a dynamo as Big Mamma, and bounces right on through her scenes. James Richardson certainly looks the part of Big Daddy, and he often delivers his lines with a spark of humor. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the command or confidence of Big Daddy. Consequently, the second act between Brick and Big Daddy is quite lifeless.

Julie Arnold Lisnet, as Mae, is a sparkling example of an all-claws-out woman, and Davidson Kane, as Gooper, is excellent as the son-turned-attorney to protect his rights in this desperate family. Kane is, in fact, the strongest male actor in this production and is masterly when he slips into the role of family prosecutor in the final act.

Chuck Cronin, Michael Weinstein, Lani Corson, Stevie Dunham and Nick Cyr round out the cast in bit roles.

Jay H. Skriletz’s set consists of a central lacy bed, a vanity, several oriental rugs and a console that combines TV, radio and liquor station. It’s a set that works best for those seats in the middle of the theater because much of the action takes place on the sides and on a balcony behind the main area. A suspended scaffolding of white cross beams creates a sense of the cage in which this family is trapped, and a rotating fan way above the action indicates the heat of the night.

Ginger Phelps’ costumes are colorful, sophisticated and attractive. Big Mamma’s clothes are the only exception and look a bit like a K-Mart special, which is not entirely fitting to this high-dollar matriarch.

Tromovitch’s production may not be all that one would hope for from a professional theater, but it has its merits and is sure to draw crowds. Williams’ words are, of course, thrilling to hear and ponder. They go below the surface, into the throbbing underworld of pain, and come up hopeful — even in the face of lies, and lives that walk like a cat on a hot tin roof.

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” will be performed 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 5 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 18 at Penobscot Theatre. For tickets, call 942-3333.