“A profound and compelling work which is an exciting argument about current problems in society.” World Express
“Though based on one of the world’s most familiar literary works the play is completely re-invigorated. A surprise hit for Ostermeier!” The World
Australian Premiere
Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin, Germany
The 2006 Festival saw the Australian debut of Germany’s astonishing Schaubühne – one of the world’s great contemporary theatre companies –with Nora, the visceral deconstruction of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
The company now returns to Australia with director Thomas Ostermeier’s companion production: the great American classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Like Nora, this Tennessee Williams masterpiece features one of theatre’s most compelling dysfunctional couples, Maggie ‘The Cat’ and Brick.
This searing Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is set in a sleek, modernist cage of mendacity woven around money, family, greed, sex and mortality. Truth eludes the grasp of all except, perhaps, the ever-watchful buzzard in the physical cage hovering above – a startling image and metaphor for our times.
With extraordinary performances and the bold stage aesthetic and imaginative conception for which the Schaubühne is renowned, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof enables Adelaide to more deeply explore its relationship with one of the most lauded theatre ensembles in the Festival’s history.
Performed in German with English surtitles. Presented by Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts in association with the Adelaide Festival Centre.
Biography
Thomas Ostermeier
Director
Thomas Ostermeier is one of the most distinguished directors and theatre managers of the middle generation; his stage career has been exceptional. Within a few years he made the leap from drama school, to management of a small cult theatre in Berlin right up to artistic responsibility for one of the most important venues of German-language theatre.
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