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| Fred Gwynne saves Kennedy Center | |||||||||
| I had seen ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ at the Stratford theater in Connecticut the summer of 1975 with my kid brother and sister. It started Elizabeth Ashley and Keir Dullea as the young married couple and Kate Reid and Fred Gwynne as the parents. At one point in the second act, Big Daddy receives a birthday cake, which lands on a sideboard on the stage left side of the raked stage, which contained a large bed in its center. | |||||||||
| All of the action of the show takes place in this bedroom. With the raking of the stage the bed is clearly the center piece of the production. So, night after night, the cake is delivered and lands on the side board. | |||||||||
| Big Daddy is not young, so the cake has numerous candles. As I recall it was a large two or three tier white confection, nearly a wedding cake in size. The deliverers are attempting to curry favor with the family patriarch. The duly lighted cake after arriving in splendiferous fashion is placed on the side board awaiting future ministrations. | |||||||||
| The family members depart leaving Kate on a chaise lounge on stage right facing the audience down left. Big Daddy is close by facing the audience conversing with Kate about the state of the family. | |||||||||
| The first night I watched this I took note of the large coat that Fred wore in an attempt to fill out his relatively thin frame. He tended to lean a little backwards to emphasize his not so large abdomen. The part was played on film by Burl Ives, who had a distinctly more ample torso. | |||||||||
| The scene played out and there was a rearrangement of the characters with Brick and Maggie returning to there on going argument. | |||||||||
| Later, in the fall, I happened to catch a repeat performance, this time at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. I had thoroughly enjoined the earlier performance and was eagerly anticipating this return engagement. | |||||||||
| The play progressed with it’s various family matters up to the point where the cake was on the sideboard and Fred and Kate were holding forth. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, as we were closely focused on Kate’s discourse, she sped through a line. Fred responded in his mannerly fashion, instantly followed by Kate’s rapid delivery of her exit line and an amazingly, to me, hasty retreat from the stage. | |||||||||
| Being perhaps the only individual in the house to have previously seen the performance I knew that something was clearly amiss. My attention was then focused on Fred, to the exclusion of the rest of the wide stage. He looked, with some puzzlement, after the departing Kate Reid, then languidly surveyed the audience, finally reaching his gaze off to stage left. It was the sudden change in his expression that drew my attention to the cake on the sideboard, which was now displaying a two foot flame from the melted candles. | |||||||||
| Silence reigned through the house. | |||||||||
| Fred languidly shifted gaze towards the stage right wings, having passed over the heads of the audience. I detected a change in his eyes as he desperately sought, what I clearly perceived, as the necessary arrival of a fire extinguisher. Nothing was forth coming. | |||||||||
| He paused and languidly returned his gaze, again passing over the heads of the audience, to the conflagration that faced him stage left. His look became increasingly desperate as he sought some aid from the wings, but nothing was forthcoming. | |||||||||
| Once more his gaze languidly grazed the heads of the audience as he returned his attention to the stage right wings waiting for the appearance of someone, anyone, to relieve him in this dire situation. Again, there was no aid forthcoming. | |||||||||
| At this point, with complete aplomb and deliberation, he languidly approached the sideboard with the blazing cake, picked up Brick’s pitcher of ice water and doused the cake, completely obliterating the fire. | |||||||||
| He replaced the pitcher, turned, and quietly exited stage right. There was nary a mummer in the house. The next scene started with the entrance of the appropriate cast members and the play continued apace. Other than myself, apparently no other member of the audience was aware of what a possible disaster has just been averted. | |||||||||
| I’ve always wondered since then if they added asbestos to the frosting on the cake after that performance. | |||||||||
| Copyright 2004 Chris Oakleaf | |||||||||
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