The play enters its second week with a performance tonight at 7 p.m., Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is one of Tennessee Williams’ acknowledged masterpieces, yet it is a large, unwieldy play that the playwright openly struggled with. Hollywood, of course, scrubbed it clean of the frightful subject of homosexuality for its pretty version staring Elizabeth Taylor. It is said that Shakespeare wrote several problem plays — plays that are tough to stage and figure out — and “Cat” is certainly that kind of play for Williams. It is a misshapen, oddly repetitive piece and yet it comes across as Shakespearean in reach and scope.
The Arkansas Rep’s take on “Cat,” directed by company artistic director Bob Hupp, is to shift intermission and embrace the length that includes the late-in-the-play family battle for the enormous estate of Big Daddy, which we are told several times contains the “richest land this side this side of the valley Nile.”