CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF:  CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

 
MARGARET:  She is an attractive, vivacious and tenacious woman; alternating between unabashed coquetry and vicious reproach.  She and Brick have been married since they graduated from college.  She is deathly afraid of abandonment, both by Brick and by the comfortable lifestyle to which she has grown accustomed.  Despite her self-focused interests, she is also kind and warm-hearted.  She is in a difficult situation but she intends to fight as hard as she can to fulfill her dreams.
 
MAE:  She is married to Gooper.  She has 5 children and is pregnant with a 6th.  A mean, agitated "monster of fertility" who fight's with everything she has to secure Big Daddy's estate.  She is indiscreet, petty and brings out the worst in her husband.  She is determined to ensure that she and Gooper inherit the Pollitt property.
 
IDA POLLITT (aka BIG MOMMA):  She is the wife of Big Daddy.  Breathless, sincere, earnest, crude and bedecked in flashy gems; always laughing "like hell at herself".  She loves her husband unconditionally despite his cruelty and indifference.  She loves both her sons but cannot help but prefer Brick, who is very much like his father.  Her outbursts are a willful effort to avoid the truth about Big Daddy's health.  She is a bit cleverer than she lets on. though not much.  In spite of the adversity she faces, Big Mama tries to hold her family together.
 
SNOOKEY:  She is one of the Pollitt family servants.  (She helps to bring in Big Daddy's birthday cake and champagne.)
  
BRICK:  He is the favorite son of Big Daddy and husband of Margaret.  He is a former star athlete who played professional football and then became a sports announcer, who is now an alcoholic.  Brick's manner is detached and he is indifferent to life.  He hides behind a wall of emotional reserve.  The only emotions he can express are disgust and boredom.  Brick imposes two punishments on himself and his wife: one is drinking -- he uses alcohol as a means of escape, and the second punishment is sexual abstinence.
 
GOOPER:  He is Big Daddy's eldest and least favorite son, and Mae's husband.  He tries to undermine Brick whenever he can so that Big Daddy will transfer his allegiance to Gooper.  The continued focus on his brother has turned him bitter, mean and even paranoid.  It is out of greed and spite that he plots to ensure that he and Mae inherit the plantation.  He is also a successful corporate lawyer.
 
BIG DADDY:  He is the husband of Big Mama and the father of Gooper and Brick.  He is the center of attention in the Pollitt family, not just because he is the patriarch, but because he is dying and his property is up for grabs.  He is a self-made man and proud of it.  Big Daddy is suffering from terminal cancer, but the truth is being kept from him by his family.  He is a "larger than life", brash and vulgar plantation millionaire who believes he has returned from the grave.  Big Daddy forces Brick to come clean about himself.
 
REVEREND TOOKER:  He is the local preacher.  Not an attractive character.  He is a tactless, opportunistic and hypocritical guest at Big Daddy's birthday party.  He wants to ensure that his church receives a generous portion of the Pollitt estate when Big Daddy dies.  His practiced smile is "as sincere as a bird call blown on a hunters whistle"
 
DOCTOR BAUGH:  He is the family doctor.  He has sensitivity and discreetness.  He manages to stay out of the family's destructive squabbling.  He possibly shirks his responsibility too.
 
LACEY: He is a family servant.  Good natured, smart, observant and supportive.