Northampton Community College theater department delivers an intense and riveting performance of Tennessee Williams’ classic drama “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” through April 21 in the Lipkin Theatre, 3835 Green Pond Road, Bethlehem Township.
Originally supposed to be directed by the college’s theater department head Bill Mutimer, who died March 6, the run of the show is dedicated to Mutimer, who would be proud of this production.
The show, which deals with themes of greed, deception, sexual and family dysfunction in 1955 Mississippi, makes for a memorable evening of theater.
Director Clair M. Freeman and the talented cast take the familiar story of Big Daddy and his family and make it their own. 
The three-act play opens in the bedroom of Brick, the alcoholic younger son of Big Daddy and Big Mama as he spars with his scorned and desperate wife Maggie.
As Maggie, Lydia Walker is grimly determined as she rages against both her husband and his self-serving family. She is heart-breaking as she desperately tries to get a reaction from her self-anesthetized husband. Her passion and resolve are palpable as Maggie stalks the stage, baiting Brick who strives to ignore her.
Max Weatherhold’s Brick is single-mindedly focused on the liquor bottles on the stand, as he stumbles ghost-like across the stage. Indeed, Brick seems unreachable. Wetherhold also demonstrates his mastery of physical theater as he navigates the character’s cast and crutch, falling violently several times.
Jim Long commands the stage as the domineering Big Daddy who is used to running the show. Big Daddy, who has been ill, has been falsely told there is nothing serious wrong with him, and the news has energized him as he gleefully tyrannizes his family. However, Long reveals a touching humanity in the harsh character, as the man used to always getting his way, painfully struggles to save his numbed son and understand Brick’s obvious self-loathing.
Wetherhold shows the cracks in Brick’s stone-faced facade, as his repressed anger and disgust with himself surge to the surface, as he is relentlessly pressed by his father.
Denise Long is heartfelt but tragic as Big Daddy’s long suffering wife who still loves her husband and tries to cheerfully rationalize his obvious disdain, as well as the dysfunction in her own family.
Travis Nugent is quietly malignant as the family’s other son, Gooper, who resents his parents' preferential treatment of Brick, and seethes as he ruthlessly plots to secure control of his father’s estate.
As his conniving and continually pregnant wife Mae, Megan Wolfe is strident and bitter.
The couple’s running-wild brood, played by Alden Detwiler, Luci Schneck and Lennon Ness, are humorously and aggressively annoying. Jarrad Gholston and Kevin Gaughenbaugh give solid performances as the family’s pastor and doctor respectively.
The simple but evocative set by Brett Oliveira is effective and allows the focus to be on the actors’ emotional intensity.
There are two intermissions.
Tickets are $5. Audience are asked to bring nonperishable food items for the college’ H.O.P.E. Food Bank or feminine hygiene products to help the college’s Women’s Club stock bathrooms on campus.
Performances are 7:30 p.m. April 19 and 20; and 2 p.m. April 21.
For information, call 484-484-3412, or go to ncctix.org.