The Stage Company is preparing a moral drama featuring strong acts involving intense dilemmas all in one setting: a bedroom.

The company will present Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” beginning Friday. Director Vincent Rhomberg has been directing theatrical productions for the past 40 years; Having graduated from Webster University, in the conservatory arts, he has had a hand in many productions.

“I have produced [Cat] once, but I’ve never directed it before,” he said. “I produced it in 1980 for the Public Theatre of South Florida in Fort Lauderdale. I’ve directed three shows here [at the Varsity Theatre] and I was in two for the company.”

Advertisement

Rhomberg ran several small theater groups and went to college for an undergraduate degree in directing before moving to New York and directing there, he said. As director, many things are naturally required of Rhomberg, he said.

“Especially when you are working in a community theatre, which depends upon everybody in the community pitching in, it’s a lot of extra work,” he said. “You don’t just come in and direct like you do when you’re in a professional company, you’re also negotiating people to help with the scenery and finding them and making all the schedules. It’s very time consuming, [but] it’s worth it; the payoff is good — time intensive.”

Rhomberg said the play is steamy and fiery with drama.

“It’s almost like a soap opera melodrama — Big Daddy’s dying of cancer, and they’re fighting over who’s going to get the estate, he doesn’t know and they’re going to tell him — so lots of secrets and lots of people trying to reach out and make relationships with each other,” he said. “I love plays that have that theatrical, dramatic quality.”

Rhomberg said it might be some time before he returns to another play.

“(I have) No plans immediately — I want to sleep and do my laundry,” he said.

Susan Harrocks, a performer of 15 years from Murphysboro who plays one of the lead parts of Margaret, or “Maggie,” said she is a huge fan of Tennessee Williams’ work.

Advertisement*

“I was in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ a few years ago and I played Stella … so I couldn’t pass up the chance to at least try for this,” she said.

Joey Johnson, from Murphysboro, plays leading man Brick.

“I got involved with this performance and I was just going to help out backstage and then they needed someone to come in, so here I am, three weeks later,” he said. “This play … has been amazing, as I only had a couple of weeks to get everything together, so it’s been a group effort of everybody helping … so that’s been nice.”

Rhomberg said people should take the opportunity to come and watch the play, because it is a classic of the American theater.

“It has shaped 50s drama, which then became all of our movies and everything you see today that has those ‘family squabbles’ or those kinds of scenes where people are trying to get something — they came out of this play,” he said. “What I love about it is that not everybody knows it,”

Performances are Oct. 11-13 and 18-20. Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for adults, with a special $5 student matinee on Oct. 13