Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Character Summary


MARGARET


Once an impoverished child, Margaret has married into a wealthy Southern family, the patriarch of which has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Margaret’s husband Brick is


in


Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie the Cat, 1955 Photo by Carl Van Vechten


Connection


line to inherit much of the family fortune, but Brick, a closeted gay man, doesn’t love Margaret anymore. Margaret nevertheless tries to seduce Brick, ultimately claiming she is pregnant to secure her place in the family.


Williams openly based the character of Margaret on his close friend Maria Britneva, an actress known for her no-holds-barred outspokenness and brazen mischief. Britneva shared Margaret’s seductive boldness, as well as her tendency to lie as a means to position herself closest to those with money and power. Just as Margaret lies about her pregnancy, so did Britneva fabricate a family story of extravagant nobility and political strife to work her way into the circles of the rich and famous.


Orpheus Descending LADY TORRANCE Character Summary


Lady Torrance is trapped in a marriage of hatred with her ailing husband Jabe, with whom she owns and operates a dry goods store in Mississippi. But Lady quickly falls for a newcomer in town, Val Xavier, who inspires her to pursue her dream of opening a confectionary. When the men of the town demand that Val leave, however, Lady is committed to joining him, even if it means plotting to kill her husband and revealing that she is pregnant with Val’s baby.


Connection


Williams based Lady Torrance’s extraordinary tenacity on the actress Anna Magnani, who won an Academy Award for playing Serafina in the film adaptation of The Rose Tattoo (1955). A friend


of Williams whose


confident, unconventional approach to life fascinated him, Magnani was known for both her exceptional talent and her unapologetic individualism. Despite having the part modeled after her, Magnani declined to perform the role of Lady in the show’s Broadway production but would later play the role in the film version, titled The Fugitive Kind (1959).


Suddenly Last Summer


CATHARINE HOLLY & MRS. VIOLET VENABLE Character Summary


In the wake of her son Sebastian’s mysterious death, Violet Venable attempts to convince a doctor to lobotomize her niece Catharine to keep Catharine from spreading her belief that Sebastian was gay and was violently murdered as a result of his lifestyle. Despite the threat of lobotomy, Catharine insists that Sebastian had been using both Violet and herself, without their knowledge, as a way to attract male partners. Horrified, Violet demands that the doctor “Cut this hideous story out of her brain!”


Connection


As with The Glass Menagerie’s Amanda and Laura Wingfield, Williams modeled Violet Venable after his mother Edwina, and he wrote Catharine Holly to represent his sister Rose. Larger than life in its setting and style, Suddenly Last Summer directly tackles Williams’s resentment at his mother for requesting his sister’s lobotomy, as well as his guilt over his sister’s forever-altered life. Written while Williams was discussing his family history at session with a psychiatrist and frequently visiting his sister at her assisted living facility, this “autobiographical exorcism” played out Williams’s strong anger at his mother, depicting Violet as a ruthless tyrant bent on destroying Catharine’s life.


Carla Gugino in Roundabout's 2006 production of Suddenly Last Summer Photo by Joan Marcus


THE ROSE TATTOO UPSTAGE GUIDE


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